Intro to the Blog

The purpose of this blog is to continue my research into the solar energy industry - in particular the photovoltaics industry - that I've conducted over the past 2 years. In addition, I'm also trying to find a job (feel free to contact me) in the industry and I'm using this as a way of advertising my abilities and as a way of developing contacts and keeping up to date.

As for my credentials as a solar energy economics and policy expert - I just graduated from George Washington University with an MA in International Science and Technology Policy and a focus on energy policy. I directed all of my papers toward the fields of energy policy and economics and in particular I focused on solar policy (I also learned quite a bit about biofuels so feel free to ask questions about that) - I think I wrote 3 major papers on elements of solar energy policy and economics and I did a separate presentation on solar power for another class and I wrote a newsletter article on solar energy for a futurist organization (less weird than it sounds) and I'm currently working as a researcher on U.S. state solar policy.

Aside from that, I'm a fairly smart guy with a strong respect for facts and I'm scrupulously honest about the gaps in my knowledge - which are many. So if I don't know what I'm talking about, I'll let you know.

The real impetus for this blog - aside from finding a job - extends from my independent study on technology cycles and paradigms in the photovoltaics industry. I became vey curious about the types of organizations that were getting involved in PV and different periods of time. I came to realize that what I wanted was a true genealogy of the industry. So that's one goal of the blog. I want to create a geneaology of the major players - which companies have gotten involved, where have they found staff, how have top companies shifted positions, where are top companies located, etc. As part and parcel of this effort, I want to do histories/case studies of as many companies as possible - hopefully I'll be able to interview a lot of these companies as well.

The second difficulty I faced in my paper was the disorganized nature of the information - there is no central clearinghouse for information (at least that I've found yet) on the solar business and solar policies (there's DSIRE in the US, but nothing really international and even DSIRE is sorely lacking in terms of historical information). So I want to aggregate information here so that future researchers will have an easier time than I did.

Ambitious, eh?

The big question I have yet to answer is whether or not this blog will focus just on PV or on all solar energy (solar water heating and solar thermal electric power)? We'll decide that in the future.

Next up, a plan of attack.