Pacific Blue Energy Corp. (OTCBB: PBEC), announced today that the city of Gila Bend, Arizona has shown them a commitment to fast-track a 150 Megawatt solar farm on about 100 acres of land there. Claiming favorable permitting laws, and more importantly… “strong support from town officials and staff” they’re going to be able to expedite the Phase 1 approvals for the project in just two to four months. This is an amazing feat considering that many solar installations of this scale can get stuck in red tape and generally sit for at least two years.

Is the U.S. finally getting serious about it’s commitment to solar electricity? Maybe this is a sign that we’re doing just that. Also, this underscores one of the most important things to know about solar. The fact that the value of adding more solar power to our infrastructure and creating a clean energy economy based on solar and other technologies is favored across party lines.

Yes, we still face an avalanche of problems at the Federal level, and with election cycles in the U.S. coming every two years it’s difficult to get politicians to commit to something that may not sit well with their constituents or biggest donors, but the path is getting clearer and clearer with every passing day. More and more, people from both sides of the aisle are coming together to make these projects work. Why? because they know that solar creates jobs, and solar jobs are high-paying and sustainable – and that means more people paying more taxes. . .

Of course, let’s not discount the other benefits of building large scale solar power plants such as this one. The energy this plant produces can power up to 30,000 homes. That means lower electricity bills down the road, and less dependence on foreign energy right away.

-Joe

Want to learn more about Pacific Blue Energy? Visit their site here.

Thinking about getting involved in the solar industry yourself? Check out over 400 available solar jobs on the Solar Visionaries career page

Lately, in my Executive Search work, I have more and more conversations with candidates about how to market themselves. Yes, the job market is tight right now, even in the burgeoning solar industry, but there has to come a time when job seekers take it upon themselves to get ahead of the competition if they really feel that they’re the right person for the job.

Most conventional recruiters will tell you that they have the responsibility of positioning you to a prospective employer, while this is true, their methods can often be outdated and disadvantageous to the candidate. Recruiters are paid by employers to find the best possible candidates, and in the process of their candidate sourcing, they will inevitably be drawn to resumes that match keywords with a particular job description. This works, but in the case where the true need of the employer goes beyond what is often stated in a job-description, where the qualitative factors come into play as much as the quantitative ones, supreme candidates can be left out of the running completely.

For this reason I’ve been challenging more candidates to move away from trying to convince me that they’re a great candidate based on what they’ve done, but to give me a compelling reason to promote them to employers based on what they’re capable of, and what it is that they really want to do. As I do this more and more, I find that candidates are now starting to self-select themselves, and the ones that make the best case are inevitably very strong contenders.

We’ve all heard the old adage that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting the same result. With this I challenge you all to think differently, to be visionary, to commit yourselves not only to finding a job, but to committing to only finding a position that you’ll be great at.

Confucius said “Find a job you love and you’ll never work a day in your life”. Now more than ever we need to emphasize this above all else. Let’s be straight, the job market is pretty tough right now, and that’s probably not going to change for a long time to come. Focus yourself on where you will fit in based on what you are great at, and more importantly what you care most about. This will tell you where you can make the greatest contribution to your employer, and put you in a situation where you’re valued beyond just what results you can produce based on your history. In short, it will raise you from the level of “producer” to the level of “asset” to the organization.

This process is a lot of fun too. Imagine doing something that you feel good about every day. Something that you want to continue to think and learn about even when you’re not on the clock… That’s the ultimate way to create job security. Your employer will pick up on these things and be more interested in understanding how he or she can take the skills and passion you bring and put them to best use, rather than reviewing your skills on your resume and evaluating how much you might be able to produce before feeling overwhelmed, burning out, or being lured by another opportunity.

Stay ahead of the competition. Know why you’re the best for the position, the company, and the industry you’re targeting. This will project an aura of trustworthiness and loyalty to the employer that they do not see very often. It will make you special. This will be particularly pronounced in small businesses and start-up organizations who are more dependent on each individual than big multinationals. They are hiring right now, and their top executives are more accessible than those from the larger companies. Most importantly, they’re the ones who can give you the opportunity to grow and fully utilize your skills and passion to make a difference. Align yourselves with them first, and the resume will become a secondary resource rather than the first method of screening you.

More on this in coming articles. In the meantime, check out who’s hiring on SolarVisionaries Career Page.

Have feedback? Leave a reply and let’s discuss!

You can read the article I mentioned here. http://bit.ly/9TN3Z9

Great job, great life.

-Joe

Check out how they can make solar work for you at their website. You can also get to know the man who created the Solar Lease program, David Arfin, in our “Visionaries” area.

Solar is here and now, and SolarCity is one of the companies that’s proving it to the world and profiting from the growth. Definitely one worth knowing about.

-Joe

In addition to centralization, Neville Williams highlighted the fact that many are too poor for even the most basic solar installation without significant financing support, and that most solar installation projects in the developing world have been implemented by entrepreneurial initiatives, where the skills needed to scale up from initial startup years are distinct from the skills needed to take those start ups to scale.  Dr. deLucia concurs that many are too poor, calling this situation a “poverty trap”.

Then how can so many of these extremely poor now afford cell phones?  A September 24, 2009 Special Report from The Economist delves into this question, restating this inquiry in the article title, “How a luxury item became a tool of global development”.  The Economist asserts, “The spread of mobile phones in the developed world, together with the emergence of two main technology standards, led to economies of scale in both network equipment and handsets.  Lower prices brought mobile phones  within reach of the wealthiest people in the developing world.  That allowed the first mobile networks in developing countries to be set up, though prices were high.”  Bringing this quote back to our Chilean rural community, the one phone within ten miles was a mobile phone that was so expensive to use, poor neighbors only used it in emergency situations.

The Economist continues, “The next big step was the introduction of prepaid billing systems, which allow people to load up their phones with calling credit and then talk until the credit runs out.  Prepaid billing saves operators sending out bills and chasing up debts… Once the switch to prepaid was made, the biggest barrier to broader mobile access became the cost of a handset… the price of a basic model steadily fell, from around $250 in 1997 to around $ 20 today.  As handset-makers became aware of the scale of the opportunity in the developing world, they turned their minds to producing low-cost models.  And for those who still could not afford their own handsets, help was at hand in the form of microfinance.”  The Economist goes on to ask, then answer, “Does the spread of mobile phones promote economic development?  At first the evidence was anecdotal.  There were stories about farmers and fishermen phoning around to see where they would get the best price for their produce and fish, for example.”  This was exactly what we observed in Haiti with our fisher cooperative presenter.  The Economist then cites micro and macro-economic research that has quantified the dramatic impact cell phones have had in poor countries.  The research affirms Columbia University’s Earth Institute Director and Development Economist, Jeffery Sachs’,  assertion that the cell phone has become “the single most transformative tool for development.”

The Economist article is worth a read at http://www.economist.com/specialreports/PrinterFriendly.cfm?story_id=14483872.  It goes into more detail than we can here, but my hope in raising the comparison between solar and cell phone penetration in developing countries is to encourage a dialogue and analysis of the similarities and differences between the two.  I am inclined to believe that legitimate barriers that experienced people like Neville Williams and Dr. Russ deLucia point out will be overcome as the solar industry turns its attention to such a substantial subset of the world’s population that currently has little or no access to electric power.

Early in 2009 I participated in a briefing session on the solar industry to a hedge fund considering investments in solar companies.  The presenter accurately summarized the “Anatomy of a Shakeout“ in the solar industry that indeed has been taking place this year.  Vast amounts of solar panels would be stockpiled and/or scrapped.  I jumped in to say, “Let’s not scrap all that product; surely some of it can be redirected to developing countries in ways that do not distort markets, but help achieve real improvements in poor peoples’ lives.”

Dramatic drops in prices, technologies that leapfrog right over phone land lines or grid tied systems, financing solutions that combine new entrants’ desires to gain new markets with microfinance programs that allow people to start using new technologies, much quicker adoption than any would have estimated just a decade ago.  Enough similarities to consider how solar might learn from cell phone adoption in the poorest parts of the world.