Allen, it was my pleasure and duty as an LA native, to share the facts and just the facts, Joe-Friday-style.
The airships are more than a few megawatts and could generate revenue exceeding our 30MW plant due to higher prices. Let me explain: if the prototype build-out is approved (we received a $465K award in January, per latest 10Q and announced much later, for airship prototype DESIGN purposes only) then we get to participate in the buildout of a presumably scaled-down airship (maybe 80% size is my crazy hunch) and this might give us 600kW of PV sales. On the full-sized ship which has to remain aloft for longer than prototype trial tests let me suggest 900kW of PV/blimp (again a wild guess) because the airship is not only going to be full-sized but also full sustained performance. If the prototype is accepted in early 2006 (I think that is the completion point) then our government could launch buildout of the airship fleet. I've read 11-13 airships needed to cover the east/south/west coastline with Lockheed's spokesman telling me that buildout could be "one per year." I find this buildout rate, if the goal of coastline surveillance is crucial, to be absurd... but no reason to argue with a mere spokesman on the phone. If I were in charge (ho ho!!) once the prototype was cleared as workable by early 2006 (or sooner) I would gear up the Akron site for at least 2-3 airships coming out per year to get the job done in a still-extended 4 years for coastline security surveillance.
If I'm correct that these airships require ~900kW (nobody really knows the exact number yet anyway) then with me in charge, we'd sell 2.7MW/year just for US surveillance airships, let alone rest of private and non-US govt. demand, and at a handsome price that could exceed revenues of the full capacity output of our 30MW terrestrial machine. I'm thinking $2.50/watt for our terrestrial PV vs. a magnitude or more higher per watt for our PV on kapton for the airships.
And not only would the revenues be significant if this comes to pass but the margins would be higher. Can I prove it...
NO... but they are coming to us... and it does begin to look like that old movie where when you need help, in this case when it comes to lightweight, rugged space PV, who you gonna' call... UNISOLAR. I'm still anxiously awaiting a fellow-awardee from the AFRL for thin film for satellites from the much-touted, much-vaunted CIGs wannabees for space projects. We are endorsed and enabled on both airship and satellite fronts by the powers that matter... but I caution you that their timelines are slow. Airships in 2 years at the soonest, satellites in 4 years at the soonest IMO... but the scales turning in our direction will be slowly, ever so slowly, perceived by the rich and ever-more-hungry big investors over time, if I'm right and this comes to pass.
California solar funding isn't ending. It is multifaceted and would require a chapter or an entire book. This state is heightening its' citizens awareness of the dilemma of cleaner but not-clean-enough air and ever-more-expensive non-renewable fuels (natural gas) vs. renewable energy while coping with federally condemned, but federally unassisted, air quality health issues. I think California would sign the Kyoto protocol that Bush (and Clinton danced around presenting for ratification) bluntly declines. Allen, my prediction is that solar will still grow faster in California than any other but
we are just one state and solar is growing by state and municipal support without strong support from the White House. Some recall Cheney snearing at the idea of solar during the last campaign and I just can't, for the life of me, forget that guy's unintended humor. Ovshinsky long has said at 100MW we begin to render oil into history as oil did to whale oil, and Cheney chuckles as if this couldn't happen without his own personal permission. California will do what it has to do inspite of Cheney, Bush, their FERC-Fuck appointees, their personal messages received from their God insisting on unilateral invasions, their self-satisfied ignorance of Geneva conventions, their
set up of exorbitantly-paid mercenary organization-complexes (George meet George the III) that aren't even subject to military codes of conduct. God help us all.
Now back to ECD.
ECD has had its own good sales force trying to sell PV for years. The difference, IMO, is when a reputable roofer, like So Cal Roofing/SIT and more to come(!!!) with 60+ years experience gets a call from a repeat customer to replace the roof they installed 20 to 25 years ago and that has performed well, and this roofer says would you like a roof or a roof plus energy savings... they WILL listen a hell of a lot more to them than to some Joe from an outfit called Ovonic whizbang Solar. SIT has more in backlog than we, Unisolar, ever had, but our guys aren't relying on just one strategy and they have the freedom (sans Bekaert) to make things happen with other partners and other regions. Meanwhile, IMO, sales are job one.
My apology for the politics.
Bush got a call from his God but his God is not my God.
Al |
