It's hard to believe, but the push for solar power pre-dates the oil industry by 20 years.

Back in 1839, 170 years ago, Edmond Becquerel discovered the photovoltaic effect while experimenting with an electrolyte cell. (France was an early leader in solar power. A year later, August Mouchet proposed the idea of solar-powered steam engines.) Granted, Bell Labs invented the first silicon PV cell in 1954, 55 years ago, and the idea of harnessing power from the sun dates back to the ancient world. But Becquerel's discovery really served as a foundation of the modern solar world.

Then, in 1859, 150 years ago, Gaston Plante invented the lead acid battery. He demonstrated it at the French Academy of Sciences a year later.

Then we stopped listening to France, and everything went to hell.

On August 27, 1859, 150 years ago, Edwin Drake sunk the first commercial oil well, according to this post in Wired.

Then on December 31, 1879, or about 130 years ago, Thomas Edison showed off what became the blueprint for the commercial incandescent bulb, one of the oldest, largest and last vestiges of vacuum tube technology. (Computers and even stereos shifted from vacuums years ago.) It was a great invention. Unfortunately, it is also somewhat inefficient.

The scramble for patents in green technology continues to grow and, again, fuel cells are proving to be quite popular.

Law360 took a look at a survey from Albany's Heslin Rothenberg that found that 274 patents were granted in the U.S. in the second quarter, up from 261 in the same period in 2008. 928 clean energy patents were issued in the U.S. in 2008 and a larger number are expected this year. 156 of the patents were for fuel cells in the second quarter of 2009 and 43 related to wind. Only 36 related to solar.

Last year, officials from the European Patent Office released the results of their own survey. Fuel cells accounted for 50 percent of the applications from 1998 to 2007. Wind was second.

It might strike you as odd. Fuel cells have had a difficult time coming to market. Although a few companies sell large-scale fuel cells, the market for automotive and portable fuel cells is moribund.

Fuel cells, though, could play a critical role in energy storage, the favorite potential market today. The number of patents conceivably could reflect the comments among scientists and investors that a storage breakthrough remains the "Google" opportunity in greentech.

Fuel cells also rely on novel membranes and other materials, the kind of things that the patent office exists to protect. And, as with wind, there is a certain level of mechanical engineering involved, again the sort of things the patent office exists to protect. History may play a part too: much of the world's fuel cell research began when fuel cells seemed to have a far brighter future.

You don't become a solar installer/integrator to make millions of dollars or headlines, you do it because you're passionate about solar and want to change the world a little bit, one roof at a time.  Boulder, Colo.-based Astralux is an example of a this type of solar hero. 

"It's all about financials, solar is a commodity now," said Jesse Malcomb, VP of Biz Dev at Astralux. "Out-of-pocket costs are the real barrier and getting the that cost down is key." Interestingly, while California's SolarCity is working on leasing and imaginative financing for residential applications – PPAs are illegal in Colorado for installations smaller than 10 kilowatts.

Colorado doesn't have the world's greatest solar resources, but the state's utilities do offer some of the nation's highest solar rebates. Xcel Energy offers a $3.50 per watt rebate and Black Hills Energy offers the "nation's highest rebate" – $4.50 per watt, according to Malcomb. Colorado utility Xcel, despite its attractive rebate price, is not that friendly to solar – the firm recently tried to institute an interconnection fee for solar installations (see Ucilia Wang's article here). That effort was withdrawn due to public outcry, according to Malcomb.

While we're talking price per watt, the pre-rebate price to install solar has dropped significantly according to Malcomb – from about "$8/W in 2008 to $6.50/W this year." This makes life difficult for installers and panel manufacturers as the margins start getting tight – but it's good news for consumers.

Astralux actually has its' roots in the science of solar. Its CEO Dr. Randolph (Rande) Treece, has a background in PV materials, as well as sputtering and CVD systems for the deposition of thin-film PV. Despite these advanced materials roots, almost all of the panels the firm installs are crystalline silicon-based in order to maximize energy harvest from the available roof space.

It's always interesting to hear from installers about new products and Astralux' Malcolm had some positive things to say about microinverters.  "We've seen a huge increase in interest in microinverters," he said, adding, "Microinverters really help in installations with variable slopes, multiple orientations, and mixed string size."  He also noted that he has seen microinverter costs come down, and he raved about the monitoring capabilities and ease of set-up with microinverters. He specifically cited Enphase microinverters (see The Coming Disruption in the Inverter Market).

Greentech Media spends a lot of time covering the big guns in solar – Suntech, Sanyo, SunPower, etc. as well as the larger residential installers like Akeena Solar and Solar City – but it's the little guys like Astralux who are the foot soldiers of the solar revolution.

Astralux has installed a little over 1-megawatt of solar since 2008. This video shows off some of the company's fine workmanship.

Flat means flat, right?

In most context yet, but the definition of the word was a bit of a skirmish this week in the world of solar thermal and it opened up a portal onto an issue that even many people steeped in solar didn't know existed.

On Wednesday, eSolar unveiled its 5 megawatt solar thermal plant in Southern California. The system consists of 24,000 mirrors or heliostats focusing thermal energy onto two water-filled towers. The water turns to steam. The steam turns a turbine, and Southern California Edison gets some power for homes.

Bill Gross, eSolar's CEO, says one of eSolar's advantages lay in cost. It is the only company in the world to use flat mirrors to focus heat, he claimed. Historically, solar thermal systems have used curved, parabolic mirrors.

"Our breakthrough is that we are the ONLY ones who have invented/patented/perfected using tens of thousands of flat mirrors," he wrote me in an email. "That is what gives us the cost advantage. We make the parabola is software."

But doesn't Abengoa use "flat" mirrors in its Solucar solar thermal plant in Spain? The white paper says so and the mirrors in all of its pictures of the two year old project look flat. And so do the mirrors in the 6-megawatt solar thermal field erected by competitor BrightSource Energy in Israel unveiled in June 2008. (In case you're keeping score, that means that eSolar is third to market with a heliostat field among these three but first in the U.S.)

The mirrors in the BrightSource field are flat, says Keely Wachs, a BrightSource spokesman. They come from conventional mirror manufacturers. When BrightSource mounts them onto the tripods so the can focus heat on the sun, the mirrors curve a little bit. That slight curve helps focus energy onto the water tower, but they are still conventional mirrors, not specialty items "curved by design."

Thus, the mirrors probably cost as much as the eSolar ones. Does the mounting device that BrightSource have that curves it a tiny bit cost more than the eSolar one? Hard to say. Gross says yes. Wachs made something approximating a sound effect and common sense says the mounting things look really similar.

So there you have it. Both are right (although I haven't checked with Abengoa). eSolar likely is the first with perfectly flat mirrors. And the cost issue may be within a rounding error although it can't fully be determined.

It is going to be an interesting space to watch. Solar thermal projects consist of an astronomical number of variables. Which company has the best system will likely be decided by the banks and utilties: whatever they decide to finance by default will become the best.

Let a Thousand Modules Bloom.

Mark my words: That will be one of the big trends in solar in 2010.

For the past few decades, solar manufacturers have largely concentrated on designing a single panel and selling the bejeezus out of it. A company typically manufactured variations of their core panel, but the differences weren't huge. In fact, it has often been tough to tell the differences between panels from different manufacturers.

Manufacturers in turn have not put that much effort into marketing their panels. What's the difference, they've figured.

But as the solar market grows, manufacturers will come up with different panels for different markets. Suntech is already working on making its commercial panels more distinct from its residential ones. In a nutshell, the commercial panels will be bigger and the residential ones will be smaller, but there will be bigger differences.

"We're looking at optimizing at both ends. We want to focus a bit better. We've been working on it all year," said Steve Chen, chief marketing officer at Suntech.

Applied is trying to get utilities to adopt the amorphous silicon supersize panels that come off its SunFab line.

Soliant makes a PV concentrating system tailored for flat roofs.

Armageddon Energy has a hexagonal panel and racking system to make solar panels easier to install on commercial roofs. Solyndra has its wacky tube-shaped solar panels.

And several companies are combining photovoltaic panels with solar light and thermal energy for solar appliances.

In the end, specialization could lead to increased sales, better price points, and a greater concern for aesthetics. It could even help insulate manufacturers from price competition because it won't be one big generic market. In a sense, the solar market will become more like the PC market – longer take on that argument here.

Keep watching for developments on this trend. Or am I full of it? Tell me what you think.

Xcel Energy has opted to drop its proposal to charge Colorado customers with solar energy systems a minimum monthly fee for grid upkeep.

The utility's proposal had attracted an uproar from solar companies and from its customers. The state's Public Utilities Commission was due to hold a hearing on the proposal Wednesday, and that was canceled with Xcel decided not to pursue the plan for now.  

The new fee would've affected only new customers who install solar after April 2010.

Xcel said that many of its customers who own solar energy systems aren't paying their share of maintaining the grid because their systems typically generate more energy than they need. The customers send the excess electricity to the grid and get credits on the bills.

Because they don't owe the utility money at the end of the billing cycle, they don't pay the grid maintenance fee that is folded into the regular rate that non-solar customers pay.

By Xcel's calculation, a customer owning a 4.5-kilowatt system would pay about $1.90 per month under the proposal. But the fees could be a lot higher because it's based on each customer's use of electricity procured by Xcel, such as during the night when the solar panels aren't generating electricity.

Xcel's proposal appeared unusual. Investor-owned utilities in California, for example, don't impose a grid fee for their solar customers. 

Most solar conferences are powerpoint marathons, interrupted by coffee breaks and low-grade lunch food.

SolarTech forums don't settle for that.  Except for maybe the food part.

These are not high-tech meetings with deep dives into Tellurium supplies – they are nitty-gritty forums for installers, utilities, and regulators to figure out how to bust through the roadblocks that prevent residential solar in the U.S. reaching wider and faster deployment (see California's Top Solar Cities).

SolarTech's charter is to effect change in the solar installation process – and the organization wants concrete results.  

One of its stated goals is a 50 percent decrease in interconnection cycle time by 2012.
Another long-term aim of the SolarTech team is to define a plan to get to 3 gigawatts of PV by 2017.

Doug Payne, the driven Executive Director of SolarTech defines the critical aspects of interconnection as "The point from final system inspection to grid connection, and the point when customers start getting the benefits of net metering. Even more compelling - it increases consistency, transparency, and predictability from initial permit submittal requirements, to project inspection, to the final interconnection steps".

Some of the process changes that SolarTech is working on:

• Online applications and tools (shared, automated, with FAQs)
• Streamlining the application process (permitting process, fees, consistency, communications and usage info)
• Simplified meters (real-time delivery)

Peter Rive, the Co-Founder and COO of SolarCity had some good comments:

• "You don't get your margin until the interconnection and the rebate is provided.  We will do anything to reduce that cycle time.  The working capital requirements when you scale this are enormous.  The industry is motivated and ready to invest time and effort to reduce cycle time."
• "You have to think of solar as a consumer product – and it's a freaking annoying product – you have to be home six or seven times during the course of the installation. It's more annoying than buying a house." (Both the Rive siblings are prone to cursing in public fora.)

But who owns this process?  How does the solar industry implement these changes?

"The California Public Utilities Commission needs to own the process" according to a CEO I spoke with. He didn't want attribution so as not to anger the CPUC.