Now, a study conducted at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, claims we need not wait any longer: Grid parity is here! In some parts of North America, the study says, this hoped-for result has already been achieved.

The change that has made this possible? Technological advances played a role, but the biggest factor has been the plummeting costs of solar, which have decreased an astonishing 70% since 2009. That’s the kind of decrease rarely seen in any industry and is likely the main cause for Solyndra’s failure — which was in fact an indication of the robust success of the solar industry as a whole.

In addition, the study points out that contrary to the widespread belief that solar panel productivity can decrease 1% per year, the real figure for top-of-the-line panels is more like 0.1 – 0.2%.

While the study’s conclusions are likely to be debated, it’s clear that solar has become more viable more quickly than anyone would have predicted. That’s one bright ray of sunshine to take us into the new year.

Just some of the 15 solar enthusiasts gathered at Farley's Cafe in San Francisco last weekend. Thanks to Kristina Shih of Solar Mosaic for this photo.

And what better time to learn about some of these than last Sunday at Community Solar Day. Solar Mosaic, which provides one of these options, conceived of this event to jump-start solar projects in people’s communities, and many others joined in to sponsor events all over the world.

Can you spot all the roofs with solar in this photo? I hope ours will join them soon!

Have you ever thought about going solar? Maybe you rent, live in a condo, can’t afford solar, have a shaded roof, or plan to move soon.

Some states are now making it possible to go solar even in these situations. In those states, people can subscribe to solar power from a common array called a solar garden, supplying their homes through the existing power grid. Next year, a bill will be before the legislature in California to make this possible here. Please urge your representative to vote for SB 843, which would enable solar gardens to happen in California.

And for now, take advantage of this opportunity to learn about solar gardens:

When: Sunday, November 20, 2011, 4:30 pm
Where: Farley’s Cafe, 1315 – 18th Street, in  Potrero Hill, San Francisco
What: Community Solar Day is a worldwide Meetup sponsored by, among others, Solar Mosaic, Vote Solar, Community Power Network, the Solar Panel Hosting Company, and the Solar Gardens Institute to kick-start solar projects in people’s communities.

If you can, bring a photo of yourself with friends and family at a site where you’d like to see solar power.

Together, we can help get solar to everyone in our communities!

Please RSVP at my Community Solar Day Meetup site for San Francisco.

I'm in this group photo, but you'd need pretty good eyes to see me!

Any regular visitor to this blog has read more than once about the GRID Alternatives Solarthon. After participating in this “solar barn-raising” last year, I was hooked. And that’s not surprising, since the event combines two of my favorite things: solar power and community. It’s a celebration of the work GRID does all year, and it provides an inspiring example of what people can achieve together.

Some of us on the roof at the Women's Build.

There’s no dearth of good causes to contribute time and resources to, and many of us give to other organizations and do other kinds of volunteer work. But I’ve found volunteering for GRID the most satisfying. Yes, it’s partly that all the staff and volunteers are just so nice, and it’s partly that it’s very different from the work I do during the week. But mostly, it’s the bang you get for your buck. How many other single actions can you take that make a difference in such a host of areas as the environment, public health, jobs, the economy, foreign policy, national security … you get the idea? To top it all off, by volunteering with GRID you’re also helping spread renewable energy in the communities that are generally most affected by environmental problems.

Three of us lifted the heavy inverter into place and then went to work connecting it.

So I was glad to take part in this year’s Solarthon last weekend. And I must take a moment here to thank my family members and friends who helped me become the top fundraiser for the Solarthon for the second year in a row, for which I was featured in this GRID video. With your help, I raised over $4,500! This helps GRID continue their important work all year.

The direct benefits of this particular Solarthon can be measured:

• We installed 13 PV energy systems.
• These represent 31 kW of clean, renewable energy.
• The systems will produce 1.7 million kW over their lifetime.
• The families will save $290,000 over the system lifetimes.
• And the systems will prevent 977 tons of greenhouse gas emissions.

This is just one day’s work. GRID is growing exponentially and has already installed over 1,200 solar systems, preventing 96,300 tons of greenhouse gas emissions. But there’s a lot more to it than these impressive statistics. At the Solarthon, you experience being part of a community of solar enthusiasts, as well as the community where you’re installing the panels. While doing something very concrete in one neighborhood, you also get to feel that you’re part of something larger.

The happy homeowner turning on her new system.

Which you are. GRID is not alone in spreading solar through communities. We had a visit at the house I was working on from Joy Hughes of the Solar Gardens Institute, who wrote about the event in her blog. As a proponent of community solar, she was enthusiastic about GRID’s work, which brings local power to communities in need. She’s part of a growing community solar movement, as is GRID — just from a slightly different angle. And this movement could significantly change how we generate, distribute, and use power. The hope is that it will not only help us get off fossil fuels but also directly benefit not the large power companies but the people who need the power — which is all of us.

And that’s really the reason to volunteer for GRID and other renewable-energy organizations: we all benefit. We’re not talking in a fringe benefit kind of way; this is a serious, urgent issue. If we don’t take care of the environment, all those other causes people volunteer for will cease to exist. And ultimately, that’s really the reason I choose to devote my volunteer time and energy to an organization like GRID Alternatives.

The whole group at the end of the day.

The roof we worked on with all 10 panels in place.

With Erica Mackie, co-founder of GRID.

For more Solarthon photos, see my Facebook album and this album from GRID Alternatives.

You may or may not have noticed, but a grassroots movement in community power is picking up speed around the country. What’s community power, you may ask, and why does it matter?

The community power movement aims to decentralize electricity generation, which provides benefits to communities beyond local, clean, and more affordable energy — though those benefits would be enough. Take the case of solar power. Solar is getting cheaper, and given the costs of coal and nuclear plants, it will at some point become cheaper than other options. But who will benefit? Organizations promoting community power want to ensure that the answer to that is the people who need the power, rather than big companies outside their communities. In addition, keeping power production local creates jobs locally, avoids destroying delicate habitats, and bypasses the need for inefficient transmission lines, which can take many years to put in place.

Community power also helps address the challenges many of us face in going solar. If you’ve read about my quest for solar at my condo complex, you’ll have some insight into what this means for multi-family buildings. Condo dwellers aren’t the only ones facing significant hurdles; renters are at the mercy of their landlords. And many single-family homeowners can’t afford solar, even with rebates and incentives. In fact, fewer than 1% of U.S. homes currently have solar panels.

A big boost for single-family homes has been the increase in leasing options, such as those provided by Sungevity. This Oakland-based company is showing that solar is not just for the elite but can be within reach of any homeowner. Leases allow homeowners to go solar without putting any money down — thereby saving money right away, with savings increasing yearly.

But what’s a homeowner to do if their roof is not large enough, too shaded, or not positioned correctly for solar panels? Even a lease can’t help with those issues. Plus, leases are hard to come by for condos and are not an option for renters. That’s where community solar comes in.

Groups like these are springing up around the country to help address these challenges:

• Solar Mosaic, based in Berkeley, uses crowdfunding to raise money for solar installations on schools, churches, all kinds of public buildings, or homes. Anyone can invest in a “Tile,” which represents a $100 share in a solar installation. The investor is paid back in full over a period of years (with no interest), and the money generated by the system is used to fund future solar projects.
• Re-volv, a San Francisco nonprofit, uses a similar model to fund renewable energy projects in community centers. The organization aims to empower communities and individuals to invest collectively in renewable energy, creating what basically amounts to a revolving loan that helps fund more community solar projects.
• The Colorado-based Solar Gardens Institute helps people pool resources as a group to buy panels in a “solar garden” — these can be on the roofs of public buildings such as churches, schools, or libraries, on parking lot awnings, or in other available spaces. Because laws in many areas prohibit anyone but a utility company from selling power, the organization advocates for legislation that promotes community-based energy development.
• The Mount Pleasant Solar Cooperative started as a group of friends and families that decided not to wait for the government or business to take action on global warming. Though it began as a small venture in a DC neighborhood, the larger goal is to make solar affordable and available throughout DC, where they’ve already formed other coops — all of which can serve as a model for the rest of the country.

We can all help promote the model of community power — after all, we are the community, so our involvement is crucial to the movement’s success. A good first step is to sign up for updates from the groups listed above and others like them, and ask how you can get involved. You can donate to organizations like Re-volv or ask them how they can help you fund solar projects in your community. Or you can invest in a Tile with Solar Mosaic, which is similar to lending through kiva.org — you might think of it as micro-investing rather than micro-lending. With all these options, and others sure to come, it’s easy to get involved and make a difference.

Sue Amar, EcoTuesday ambassador Jesse Martinez, and EcoTuesday co-founder Nikki Pava

At a recent EcoTuesday gathering in San Francisco, Sue Amar, Sustainability Officer at salesforce.com, referenced what Malcolm Gladwell calls the “law of the few” (aka the 80/20 principle), according to which 20% of the people will bring about 80% of the changes in the world. She’s a prime example of this herself, having single-handedly started a robust sustainability program at salesforce.com.

While many companies have recently embraced sustainability — even Walmart! — Sue explained how salesforce.com, with their commitment to the cloud, goes beyond the usual efforts to green the supply chain, travel, facilities, and other such areas. But beware: You may think you’re already using the cloud, but not all clouds are created equal! The salesforce.com sustainability site delineates the differences:

• On-premises cloud: Onsite hardware and software that must be bought, installed, and maintained.
• Private (or “false”) cloud: A cloud that’s housed in a data center, uses virtualization technology, or is hosted — and still requires hardware and software that must be bought, installed, and maintained.
• 100% cloud: A cloud that uses “multitenant architecture” to allow sharing and economies of scale — using a small number of servers that are optimized to do as much as possible. This cloud has the benefit of being 64% more efficient than the private cloud and 95% more efficient than an on-premises cloud.

This kind of focus has made salesforce.com a leader in sustainability among high-tech companies. And their commitment to sustainability has been solidified and advanced by one employee, Sue, who started their sustainability program as a volunteer (in addition to doing her regular job) and now leads the effort full-time.

A section of the audience at EcoTuesday

EcoTuesday itself is another excellent example of the power of one or two people. Just a few years ago, the this networking group for sustainability professionals didn’t exist. Now, thanks to its two founders, Nikki Pava and Oren Jaffe, it’s spread to cities throughout the U.S and is providing a wonderful and inspiring venue to learn about what people like Sue Amar are doing.

As Davis noted, sustainability is always a journey whose destination you never reach. But it’s undeniable, however you may feel about Walmart, that they’ve undergone a huge transformation — and most significant is the fact that as the world’s largest company, they’ve had a far-reaching influence that goes well beyond their own walls. In fact, a Sustainable Business Forum article notes that some prominent sustainability leaders consider Walmart’s green initiative to be “the best thing to happen to the environment in the U.S. in the past 10 years.”

Still, most people don’t think of using the words “Walmart” and “sustainability” in the same sentence. Walmart hasn’t fully succeeded in telling this story to the public because so much of their sustainability effort is hidden in their supply chain. Yet it was concern about their increasingly bad reputation that led CEO Lee Scott to adopt what he now looks back on as a defensive strategy. It wasn’t long till he was convinced to see sustainability as a business opportunity rather than just a way to stay out of trouble, and the strategy transformed into a long-term offensive one.

Walmart’s adoption of sustainability came from the top: there was no rank-and-file demand for it, and in many ways it wasn’t a natural fit for the company. However, a number of factors made it possible for this strategy to take hold there:

• Walmart is a mission-driven company whose mission is to improve the lot of lower-income people by enabling them to purchase items at lower prices. It wasn’t hard to add sustainability to this mission, especially when it resulted in lower prices and healthier items.
• Walmart’s “Ready, Fire, Aim” culture made the company willing to try new things and take risks.
• Some aspects of the company’s leadership style helped move the strategy forward: Their quantitative leanings helped because the company was hyper-aware of anything that lowered prices and raised sales. Their tendency to be confrontational ensured that they’d push suppliers to do more.
• The company motto “Eat What You Cook” encouraged executives to experience how their decisions affected things on the ground. While CEOs at many companies would consider it beneath them to go out to observe good and bad cattle ranching practices, this was not an issue at Walmart. Getting top executives to see environmental issues first-hand was an important tool in the move to sustainable practices.

The first step Walmart took was to calculate its carbon footprint. This is where Walmart’s story becomes especially interesting, because it was determined that 92% of the footprint was in the supply chain. A strategy was adopted with 3 sustainability goals, the 3rd being the most ambitious:

• Use 100% renewable energy.
• Produce zero waste.
• Sell products that sustain resources and the environment.

To help achieve these goals, the company created networks of participants ranging all the way from Walmart to suppliers to government organizations, and even some NGOs that had previously been some of Walmart’s staunchest foes. Each network developed a sustainable pathway from the company’s current practices to sustainable practices.

They started with quick wins that could be implemented with existing technologies and business models, which helped them make rapid progress on their first 2 goals — and realize substantial savings. In a company with such a quantitative bent, this caught a lot of people’s attention and made it all the easier to move ahead with the overall strategy.

After the quick wins came innovation projects. One example of such a project was Peterbilt producing the first hybrid big rig truck for Walmart. When a company as large as Walmart approaches a supplier with a request, the supplier is more likely to commit the R&D dollars or provide special deals because they know how much business they’ll get in return. In another example of this, GE gave Walmart a deal on LED lights. Not only did this save the company in power costs, but it had an unintended benefit: LED lighting makes products look better, which leads to increased sales. The company’s sophisticated real-time inventory tracking tools allowed them to see this benefit immediately — a good illustration of how Walmart’s penchant for quantitative measures helps promote sustainability.

This example points to another interesting thing about Walmart: The move to sustainability was not driven by consumers any more than by employees. There’s still no widespread green market, and most people think of green as an elitist niche market. So Walmart hasn’t marketed the green aspect of its products as more than a nice side benefit.

They do promote green products by taking actions like placing them in strategic locations in the store — and they continue to keep prices low, showing that sustainability can be affordable. In some case that’s easy — fair trade coffees, for example, are cheaper because there’s no middleman. And in cases where it isn’t easy, Walmart still tries to find a way to go green while keeping products affordable. In a company that considered itself the expert in cutting costs, it’s interesting to see how sustainable practices have taken them even further.

Walmart’s sustainability strategy has endured and become a major part of the organization. The strategy’s effect has reached far beyond just cutting costs, reducing liabilities, and improving their reputation, though those are important benefits. It’s also energized the company and its employees and helped Walmart attract and retain talent by really engaging their ~ 2 million employees. And it’s encouraged innovation both within the company and throughout their extensive supply chain. Walmart still has some real issues to deal with — but whatever you think about them, becoming more green has allowed the world’s largest retailer to occupy a uniquely influential position in the green economy.

Maybe you weren’t planning to get me a birthday present — but if you contribute to my fund, you’ll be giving a gift not only to me but also to low-income families, the earth, and yourself.

Just click here to sponsor me — any amount helps, really!

What’s in it for you:

• Feeling good that you’re helping GRID empower low-income families, show that solar is affordable, and build communities.
• Knowing that you’re helping improve the environment, the economy, public health, and global politics – all of which helps you, too!
• My undying gratitude!
• A way out of getting me a present for birthday – a contribution to GRID is the best birthday present you could get me!
• PRIZES: This year, I’ll be giving away prizes to those with the highest contributions and to the lucky person who helps me reach my fundraising goal! Prizes include a solar charger, a digital timer, and a Kill A Watt Electric Usage Monitor.

I realize these are tough times for many people, so no pressure at all. But if you can give, I greatly appreciate it!

Thanks again to all who sponsored me for this event last year! For more on that inspiring day, see my post on the Solarthon.

Thanks so much for your support!

For more on what GRID does, see this very cool short video (with a photo from last year’s Solarthon):

Romulo (volunteer team lead), Tim, David, Jeff, Rosana, Jay, Cheryl, Peter, Janice, Rahul, Liz, Ed (volunteer team lead), and, squatting, our group leader, Dave. It was a cold day, so I wore my hard hat over my wool cap.

Last Saturday, a group of Adobe employees, including myself (plus one person’s brother and another’s friend), rose early to brave the San Francisco fog. Why would we do such a thing? Naturally, to install solar panels for a low-income family! This was made possible by Adobe’s corporate sponsorship of GRID Alternatives, a local nonprofit whose aim is to empower communities in need by providing renewable energy and energy efficiency services, equipment, and training.

The rails are at different levels so the panels can be installed at the optimum angle on this flat roof.

Though it was a cold day, we soon warmed up  as we did the work of preparing and installing the system. Some of the prep work had been done the day before, but there was still a lot of measuring, wire connecting, and conduit bending to be done before we could put the panels in place. A group on the ground connected wires and conduit to the inverter, which converts the DC energy generated by the solar system into AC energy the home can use. On the roof, others finished installing the railings that would hold the solar panels — while trying to avoid stepping or dragging things in the tar that held the railings in place on the roof.

Carefully placing the panels on the railings

We installed a 1.9 kW system, which is projected to have these environmental and economic impacts for the family and the community:

• 119,000 lifetime kW production
• $20,000 value of energy generated this system over its lifetime (savings to family)
• 80 tons of greenhouse gas emissions prevented

A day volunteering with GRID is always satisfying and rewarding — you get to experience firsthand a simple action that achieves so much. If you haven’t heard about my previous involvement with GRID, see my blog post about last year’s Solarthon, their annual fundraiser and block installation party. Since I wrote that post, GRID has done their 1000th installation. The systems they’ve installed represent over 2.5 megawatts of generating capacity and are reducing each family’s electric bills by approximately 75%, which will translate to a total of over $25 million in energy generated over the systems’ projected life spans. They will also prevent roughly 100,000 tons of greenhouse gas emissions over the next 30 years.

As long as I’m talking about the Solarthon, and telling you how much GRID has done, I might as well mention that I’ll be participating in the event again this year, and you can sponsor me here:

Any amount helps. This is truly a worthy organization, and you get a lot of bang for your buck.

More photos of the Adobe volunteer day below, in this album, and on my Facebook page.

The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent the position, views, or opinions of Adobe.

Jay, David, Janice, and Cheryl on the roof. A group next door works on another solar installation.

Even our intrepid leader Dave can't avoid stepping in the tar, so he puts on a rubber glove in place of his shoe.

As you can see, we worked very hard all day.

Jeff is working hard here, bending conduit.

Rahul bending conduit

Liz bending conduit

Janice bending conduit

Janice doing something else that's clearly very important

Our leader showing us the ropes --- I mean, the rails.

Placing the first panel: Measure twice, place once.

Connecting wires to and placing the second panel.

More panels are placed.

And more ...

One row is in place.

In a global work environment, we have many tools to help us stay in touch with our colleagues, the most prevalent being e-mail. But a great deal of important communication happens not over e-mail but in meetings and ad-hoc conversations. This is where being distributed, rather than co-located, puts team members at a disadvantage. Even in meetings, remote employees have trouble getting a word in — if a number of people are in a room, those on the phone are often overlooked. And as important as meetings are in getting things done, ad-hoc conversations are the number one way a group shares awareness and information. We all know how much easier it is to work with someone we can run into and talk to anytime.

Studies have shown what our own experience can confirm: we interact far more with people in close proximity, and even being in a different row of cubes or on a different floor can make a difference. In fact, a distance of 100 feet may be no better than many miles, and even short distances, such as 3 feet versus 20 feet, make a difference.

Where's the remote employee? Often, their only presence in a meeting is a phone on the table. Image courtesy of Microsoft Research.

So how do we keep communication going and establish trust when our co-workers are dispersed in different locations? It helps to use telconferencing software. But the technology often doesn’t work as expected, and even when it does, it doesn’t allow for the visuals and the kinds of interaction that are possible in person. The remote people on the screen may be small and hard to see, and they may not have a good view of the main meeting room.

A research team at Microsoft – which includes Mary Czerwinski, Gina Venolia, George Robertson, John Tang, and Kori Inkpen Quinn — have come up with a promising new solution: “Embodied Social Proxies” (ESPs).

Image courtesy of Microsoft Research.

These are devices made up of a computer with a monitor picturing the remote employee, and a camera on top that tracks their gaze, so people in the room can see where they’re looking. The remote employee has both a wide-angle camera to see the whole room and a regular camera to look at each person in the room. And the ESP contains sophisticated audio conferencing. It’s simple to use — all you have to do is plug it in, and it’s ready to go.

Remote person's view through Embodied Social Proxy. Image courtesy of Microsoft Research.

It can be given a seat at a conference table or placed higher up, if the people in the room are standing. All of these features add up to a lot more than the effect you get just using laptops with audio and video, or other teleconferencing technology — there’s something about the roughly human scale of the ESP and the quality of the representation that makes a difference.

Even when meetings aren’t happening, the remote employee can keep the device turned on in their office, and you might see them when you’re walking by; Czerwinski has come across two remote employees talking from one ESP in an office to another in a different office.

ESP when the employee is not available. Image courtesy of Microsoft Research.

When the employee is not at their ESP, a default display can be kept on that shows basic status and availability information, such as whether the employee is on vacation or in a meeting, or what the weather is where they are. The information is kept abstract enough so as not to feel invasive. And keeping the ESP on helps increase the presence of the employee in the group.

So, do these ESPs make a difference? It turns out that they do, and Cerwinski has anecdotes to illustrate their often profound effect. In one case, a software architect in Silicon Valley who felt unappreciated by and disconnected from his team in Redmond was given an ESP. Four weeks later, the situation had turned around, and the morale of the entire team was greatly improved. In other situations, the ESPs help distributed team members get to know each other even when they’ve never met in person.

In fact, the devices have been such a hit that even people on different floors of the same building are asking for them, and the research team has distributed specs to workers at both Microsoft and other companies so they can create their own ESPs. The team has been working on various features and improvements, such as improved gaze direction and a robotic arm that can point. There has of course been talk of robots — but what’s amazing is the success they’ve achieved with relatively simple technology.

As serious as communications issues are in terms of sharing information and getting work done, what I find especially compelling about these devices is their ability to improve collaboration and social ties. In considering ways to increase happiness and productivity at work, social connection is one of the key areas of focus — and it’s one of the trickiest. In my group at Adobe, and I’m sure in many others, it’s increasingly rare to come across a team that is not at least somewhat distributed, and it’s therefore increasingly hard to maintain cohesiveness in a group. I have a direct report in Ottawa whom I’ve seen in person only a few times, and I work closely with a couple people in India whom I met for the first time just the other day. Others I may never meet. So, like many knowledge workers these days, we’re prime candidates for embodied social proxies. I hope we get the chance one day to see their effects firsthand.