More major solar industry manufacturers show signs of going out of business or being forced into financial restructuring i.e. Solar Millennium AG, Sovello, MiaSole and Satcon, we believe prices will have to remain at record lows and even begin to edge down further towards the end of the 3rd quarter.

Our latest “Co-op Bulk Buy” offering of some 900 KPEM-170 watt modules for 80¢/watt were sold out quickly to approximately 14 clients. Louis Prophete of our staff will now go to Asia to inspect the modules and make all the arrangements next week for the Letter of Credit payment and shipping details.

While in Asia he will revisit some of the manufacturers Christy Kimball visited last year on her around the world trip visiting dozens of major manufacturers. As usual we will be looking for the world’s lowest prices on quality solar modules, laminates and inverters.

We have just sent out a letter today to every manufacturer in the world looking for all grades of PV modules, laminates and cells. Responses are beginning to come in and we have our fingers crossed it will be helpful in finding more of these great deals like the KPEM’s above. The age of cost effective PV is starting to happen. It is unfortunate that it has to come in such a harsh and wasteful way.

John 

In order to take advantage of the worst solar panel market conditions in history, Sun Electronics organized the largest bulk purchase ever by winning and selling the Evergreen bankruptcy auction of 7MW to 750 clients at 78¢/W. Now, in order to get more of the best possible deals ever, we are searching the industry world wide to assemble the a list great deals. We’re now putting these deals on our home page and updating them daily as more information on available discounted inventory, specifications and prices come in. You can reserve modules by calling our office at any of the numbers on our website. We are also getting offers of laminate inventory, all available for 58¢W.

We have almost sold out our first offer of  approximately 900 36V, 170W  modules and are about to send our engineer Louis Prophete to do the final testing and inspection before we ask for payment. Delivery time will be approximately 30 days later. Specs are at the top of our home page www.sunelec.com.

JK 

In order to get the best possible deals, we are gathering buyers to purchase an order for 897 B-Grade 170W Modules (KPEM-S170A72).

We are now almost half way to reserving all modules for this co-op buy.

Act fast in order to secure your modules @ $.80/watt.

We only need to reserve 646 more modules before they are all sold out.

Once we have all the modules sold, we will be sending Louis Prophete, our engineer, over to inspect the modules.

When the modules have passed our inspection, we will collect payment from those who reserved their modules.The expected lead time will be 1 month from the time that the modules are inspected.

We are only able to bring you such great deals by everyone joining in together. We were successful doing this with the Evergreen Auction where we proved this works for getting customers great deals.

Government put the cart before the horse for solar energy development. It also put way too many eggs in the cart. We need to keep the idea that in the long run solar energy will be the best choice. Unfortunately its totally unaffordable without government support and forcing utility companies to install it will not make it any more affordable. We need to slow down the development of solar energy as it has turned into a huge boondoggle because of the theft and squandering of too much of the people’s money trying to force it to be affordable. Nothing works in life like that.

There are a relatively handful of applications where solar energy (PV) is cost effective without massive giveaways of alternative sources of cash (other than your own) to pay for it. Someday somebody will figure out a way to get more power for the dollar out of the Sun and that will change the world in a huge way and a good way, I think. Until then we should call a spade a spade and limit the use of money spent on solar energy. I’m willing to tell people how much we spend on solar panels because the people should be in charge of developing solar energy not corporations or Governments. We look for panels that will cost 35¢ to 50¢/watt per container (100kw) ($35k to $50k/40 ft. container with approx. 400 – 230 watt modules. At a recent auction we just bid 43¢/watt for 34,000 Evergreen A and B panels (75 containers) and won! We got hit by other unforeseen costs but and were still able to sell them in 5 days for 78¢/watt and survive. We learned by baptism of fire. We are still able to buy Grade A modules at this 50¢ price from companies going broke worldwide and at the lower price, 35¢/watt for Grade B. (Grade B are normal solar panels with tiny cosmetic blemishes).

We’ve sold hundreds of thousands of Grade B modules with no returns over the last 10 years. At this price if they last just 20 years they are a great deal. In fact they are totally affordable and the same cheaper than the average cost of electricity today. They make off grid living within the reach of anyone. When you look at Photon’s magazine’s beautiful map of all the manufacturer’s in the world, there are around 600, I think. Unless a miracle happens they will nearly all shut down or superficially remain open at someone else’s (government/taxpayer/expense) and as we have just witnessed the government/taxpayer get tired of that after just a few years and turn and attack it in favor of increased fossil fuel development or nuclear. Money talks and bullshit walks, right?

When people are broke and jobless they sure as hell don’t want to see SOLYNDRA related scams going on even if its their local Target’s rooftop being paid for by their money for some solar system that cost them a fortune and won’t be affordable without incentives possibly for decades if there’s not a scientific breakthru. The jig is up! As this fake industry collapses a new hugely cost effective PV market will rise in its ashes. It just began and it will go on for the next two years or more, I think. Prices will drop to even lower levels. Yes lower than 35¢ to 50¢/watt. Of course every 5 years it seems something happens on the other side of the solar economic equation: Twin Trade Towers, Oil Spill, Tidal Wave, etc. and other concerns come into focus and a new perspective on the importance of PV comes into play. We’ll I’ve done it again (written till I don’t remember what its about) but that’s OK because no one reads this thing except me. Oh yeah how about this for a close .

When I was 21 I found a book about J.P. Barnum. He said the way to make a fortune was to figure out what was going to happen six months from now and get ready for it. If what I have predicted above happens, you have all the information you need to get in on it. Once you verify the inventory exists, get the specification and price, go make your final inspection in person, and always pay by an irrevocable letter of credit for international orders. It’s not rocket science. Oh yeah when you go to sell it figure $5,000 for shipping to the port of your choice and you’ll need a freight broker to fill out the paperwork (that means you have to give them power of attorney but only once or you can make it for a limited time only).

When selling large amounts of orders like we had (450 clients) for the 75 containers we won at auction, don’t take credit cards. If you feel you have tounless you have contacted the credit card transaction company to let them know otherwise you may find that you have gone over your limit and then they will panicky and no release the funds to you as they will tell you they have to have a retainer in case you have a ton of charge backs. We are still waiting for $1.5 million (now almost 6 months now) for them to call every single one of your customers. If you know of any areas that are off grid, think how you can help them with PV development, you don’t have to wait, its been cost effective for 25 years. If you want to do grid connected systems, its a total mess because the U.S. Gov. (Dept. of Commerce) on May 14th will try to shut off Chinese shipments to the U.S. of the world’s most affordable solar panels, on behalf of American mfrs. Then you have to worry about whether Obama gets re-elected and is able to get legislation to turn the 30% tax credit turned back into an instant rebate. Even guys in prison claim that one from their cells, I bet.

Then prices will rise again, especially if the Gov. shuts down the much more affordable Chinese PV panel imports. One warning If Obama gets his budget passed with 1603 the solar rebate of 30% reinstated and the ITC of 30% made permanent it could slow things some. But in the U.S. most states are cutting back heavily on solar incentives. If there’s anybody out there: Please let me know what you think. Let me know about any errors so I can correct them. And, please pardon the typos. We need every PV order we can get so call me, Shelley, Vanessa, Lek, Pierre or anyone at Sun 305-536-9917, 305-710-9645, oh yes, if you don’t get taken care of properly, please let me know. Thank you. I feel refreshed. John P.S. My computer is laying out my blog in a strange way so I’m not sure how this will look when I post it. I apologize and I will try not to let it happen again if it’s one giant paragraph.

WHY SOLAR ENERGY IS THE WAY TO GO. I HAVE BEEN THINKING ABOUT ABOUT SOLAR ENERGY LATELY AND I HAVE COME TO THE CONCLUSION THAT IT’S THE WAY TO GO. IN THE SHORT TERM IT NEEDS ALL THE HELP IT CAN GET BECUSE ITS SO UN-AFFORDABLE. THIS THOUGHT HAS RE-ENERGIZED MY ENTHUSIASIASM TO CONTINE PROMOTING SOLAR ENERGY. IT’S WHAT I WILL DO UNTIL THE DAY I DIE. JOHN

If you read the Wall Street Journal, its the end of the photovoltaic era and the PV industry seems to be shaking in its boots. You can be sure that if Solar World does not get subsidized by the Taxpayers and does not get the Department of Commerce to to effectively stop all Chinese imports they will vanish in a puff of smoke. Photovoltaic incentives are practically gone worldwide.  The industry is awash in panels and laminates. But hasn’t the writing been on the wall for a long time?

Last week the Journal said natural gas utility plants now make PV economics unaffordable for the next 25 years.  The oil and gas industry is having an orgy celebrating it in ads across America. Regular gas is at $4.35/gal. and its like nobody notices, what the hell is going on! Grid connected PV applications have exposed solar companies for what they are and the shit finally hit the fan. Well actually that does not surprise me, but should we just scrap PV completely?

The good news is that without government interference PV has a chance to find its own way again to show how it can support itself. Frankly, I have always thought Sun Electronics had the right idea. We’ve always focused on off grid PV applications where there are no power lines and the competition is diesel and gas generators, sure that’s not going to save the world but neither are grid connected PV applications going to save the world.

After everything that we seen in the last 20 years grid connected PV installations have contributed what, a small fraction of 1% of our energy use? They have also contributed to the spending of billions and then  left behind bankrupted factories we also had to pay for. You’d think we liked throwing money away. I’ve been in this business 25 years and there has never been a profitable PV factory.

Now we are watching the U.S. Department of Commerce preparing to consider 100% to 250% dumping fines against the Chinese who were the first and most successful at bringing us low cost PV modules, they did it not us. The DOC is well known for its uselessness and government waste. It’s they who should be penalized and maybe even put out of business, it wouldn’t be the first time it was attempted.Why are they fighting so hard to keep these unprofitable PV factories we have in business? It will cause the doubling or tripling of the price of PV in the U.S. If they get their way they will make all American PV installers, dealers, and distributors unable to compete against Chinese PV companies in all of Latin America, the Caribbean and the for that matter, the rest of the world. No one will be able to afford U.S. made solar panels.

Everyone has a different point of view and we can learn from those other points of view. We may be totally unaware of them so its good to hear criticism. I’m all ears. This is just what I’m thinking tonight, I tend to change opinions quickly with a logical argument..

The big question I have is what will happen if the Anti-PV guys (basically Republicans) get in the White House and the Legislature and end all PV support in the U.S. After all I’ll take anybody’s money if it will help me and Sun Electronics do what we do best, we make PV affordable on its own two feet! I don’t want American taxpayer money unless they want to give it and I don’t care if the Chinese want to dump it as long as it makes it cost effective like off-grid PV. Does that make sense. Let the rest of the world lose as much money as they want, is that our business.

My company has a solid back up plan for keeping the cost of PV down and if free money falls away we can still be cost effective. How do you think we did business in Miami these last 21 years? Florida and all our neighbors to the south never had incentives. At Photowatt, Photocomm and Kyocera for the first 10 years of my career selling PV there were basically no tax incentives. The one true and honest market for PV has always been OFF THE GRID. Talk about Green, these people are living in the green, growing the green and eating the green (oh yeah and sometimes smoking the Green) on their own land.

People say the U.S. is the only major PV market left struggling as it is, except for Japan which just had the crap scared out of it. And, now in the U.S. paranoid me actually thinks there is a campaign to totally wipe out solar and wind power forever. Look at the ads: DRILL< DRILLL< DRILL< BURN< BURN< DRILL< FRACK <BURN<FRACK ITS GOOD FOR US!  blarring away everywhere at us even I’m almost convinced. Am I the only one noticing it? I actually think they might  get a negative reaction at some point from the general public. However, if Obama, the Pro-PV guy wins, then we’ll have government wasting billions again choosing technology,  projects and factory winners and losers. He’s so much as said it in his latest speeches, OBAMA THINKS HUGE SOLAR FARMS IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE ARE WHERE IT’S AT. We, the taxpayers, should all start right here on our own homes, not in the middle of nowhere,  if they want to fund grid connected systems

So here’s the solution in a nutshell, in the rough, I think:

Give a 40% rebate to the same people who are paying for the rebates, by making it for residential power systems only. Get rid of all the carpet bagging creeps who have crashed the solar business with their stupid wasteful solar farms designed by lawyers and accountants to make a quick buck and get out. If the system is installed by the home owner, increase it to 50%.

Very few rich people will do it because because they don’t need it. They also have nice fancy roof tops and they won’t want to spoil the looks of their large architecturally awesome homes. They should also limit the size to 5KW, way to small for the homes of the wealthy. Finally, require all participants to purchase $4,000 of Energy Star appliances and or/gas appliances. We are trying to get people to save energy right? Oh yeah and  no permitting of any kind will be allowed on homeowner installed systems. since few inspectors know what their doing anyway. They could cut the budget for solar, reduce government interference, make solar much more cost effective, create more jobs than on solar farm projects and save more energy, oh yeah and educate the homeowners, all their family and all the neighborhood to boot. Anyway, something like that or just limit all solar PV incentives to off the grid applications where it makes sense.

Without incentives the industry will totally collapse for grid connected systems (95+% of the market today). Of course this has been happening since last year, especially happening because they took away the rebate in the U.S. Jan. 1st.  Germany and Italy, the No. 1 and 2 largest markets recently lost most of their incentives to make PV worthwhile there. In addition much of the excess world inventory is expected to be cleared out according the Journal by the end of the second quarter. In our most recent bulk purchase we presold at the right time and at the right price, the magic number 78 of 78¢/W for A Grade and B Grade Modules and is still a great price to this day. To do this deal we had to raise $4MM in approx. 5 days to buy the 36,000 Evergreen modules. That was last Oct. Since we finished that project we have been  focusing again  on auctions, close outs, off spec sales with UL and without, B Grade and even C Grade modules and laminates. More are now available at the world’s lowest prices ever, around 100,000 to 200,000 we have found just in the last 3 months.

It’s now raining cheap PV energy. After this there will be another cycle of renewed growth of solar PV.  God forbid a Houston refinery gets hit by a hurricane or an earthquake hits a California Nuclear Plant, a war with Iran, then the political winds for PV will shift again. Who knows what will happen in the future,  solar interest in PV will peak again.

So you bend with the wind, right? Sellers and buyers waiting for the changes and the time to place their bets on the Sun and all Renewables to make moeny, protect the environment or whatever your reason. It will always rise again, up and down, round and round we go through space and time, living. Focus on life don’t get too crazy. If your interested, affordable independent PV living is available to you now. Someday we might even get a breakthrough in technology. These have always been the goals of Sun Electronics since I started in the solar business some 39 years ago.

Recently I have been spending a lot of my time with my son John age 7. I feel like a Jewish mother. We go to art galleries, bowling, ice cream, lunch (sometimes in that order) of course the toy stores (Toys R Us is solid plastic – yuck – cheap Chinese crap!), banks, missed our appointment at the police station, donut factory, tropical gardens, lizard hunting, digging holes, hide and go seek in the darkened old office-very scary, blowing off skyrockets-just a couple, swinging on the water skiing rope way the hell up in the tree, in other words living every day as if it’s the last day of my life. You never know, it might be. So for those of us who care more about life than money, our kids are good at teaching us what we forgot, don’t worry about the solar market too much, its going to be with us for billions of years. But, don’t forget about your kids because they are everything, at least if you ask me.

In a blog awhile ago I got really upset about all the animals that we all know are dying around the globe. I made some crazy statement it wasn’t going to happen on my watch. I sure hope things will get better though, somehow. It’s weird the way we worry about the trees and the animals and we forget about all the people that just get all messed up. I guess its just easier. Anyway John’s homework tonight was to learn about natural habitat in Massachusetts.  Shrews and Blue Whales are endangered in Massachusetts, endangered, what’s endangered in your state or country? We need to remember People, Animals and Plants.   Or should we just blow them all off like were doing to solar electric power right now and fucking drill and frack and burn. They’re like Orks and Goblins in the Lord of the Rings. This whole advertising blitz by the Oil and Gas Industry is getting on my nerves. I have nothing against natural gas but fracking sounds weird, like pink slime, coal affects the air regardless and that affects people and the view. Nuclear can be summed up in a couple of words Meltdown and 200,000 years of storage. Getting started on cost effective solar just seems good all the way around for everyone.

Where was I? Oh yeah, so once again, we are lining up the best offers we can get from every manufacturer in the world, I know you may have seen this sort of thing  before from others but maybe you heard about us or the Evergreen Auction. It was amazing but we said we were going to come back and do the same thing with 100,000 modules and we are just getting started so please tell people about what we are trying to do. We need your word of mouth advertising more than anything and God knows you all like to talk about solar. So keep the faith brothers and sisters and lets raise our hearts and heads up to the the Sun God and pray that clean pure solar energy will someday win the day for life on Earth. (I’m thinking about starting a new faith based on the old religions who worshiped the SUN. I actually have a nice new empty building already for it so get your donations ready remember 10% is standard. To belong all you have to do is respect the Sun, a little Sun block is OK.

We learned allot from that  Evergreen experience, but I think its the safest thing to do right now, pre-selling that is. Once we have enough orders for a container Louis or Adam will fly to the location and inspect it. They know what they are doing. Then we will ask for the wire transfers. That’s the idea anyway so far. We already sold 33,000 modules this way. We have to have prices that will blow people’s minds, we know that, and now we know we also have to know how to get it all shipped faster, we learned that. By the way we never have gotten that $1.5MM from the credit card company, they just kept it, its been 6 months now. We will be OK no matter what the world throws at us. Newsflash Arizona may loose grid-connected PV  incentives, one of the best in the U.S. and First Solar must have been out of their mind when they started fighting with UL and UL found millions of solar modules installed with no UL, seriously.

We think once the world’s excess inventory is used up, which the WSJ said last week is happening now, the price will rise. If  Obama keeps giving  speeches  about renewable energy policy, they will go up. If he wins, prices will shoot up. If the Department of Commerce shuts the door on the Chinese next month with the 100% to 250% dumping penalty tariff or whatever it is, then the prices will explode since all the panels will come from the U.S,  Europe, Japan, and some other areas in Asia , I think.

Please spread the information on our web site home page for all the great deals. Frankly I would go for the laminates. Just call anyone of our people if your interested in the list of available modules on the home page www.sunelec.com  for as little as 78¢/watt or the much cheaper laminates only and you can buy as little as a pallet – both negotiable- but you have to wait till we fill a container or be flexible to switch so we can consolidate to all the same type to fill  containers. For details always call Louis, Adam, Pierre, Shelley, Claudia, Tony, Roberto, Charlie, Vanessa,  or Lek in Phoenix (he’s getting married this week) @sunelec.com 305-536-9917 Please don’t call me, I’m on special assignment.

Anyway at this point you can surf in either direction, just be ready when the backwash runs out and you have to get bullish again, at least if your in my position, a buyer, I’m sure there will be another world shortage of solar panels again someday like we had in 2005 to 2007.

I could say a lot more but I’d just have more to regret latter. See, my spelling is horrible nowadays, even with spell check.

Best regards,

John

“Think of what you have instead of what you want.”

To all my family: Graciela, Johnny, Rosa, Christy, Theresa, Betty, Bobby, Richard, Adelaide,  Billy, Ann Eve, Mary Lynne, Susan, Everyone in Mexico (I’m related to half of them I think)…

To all my friends who I really love to work with and to have known in my life, at work: Shelley, Rosa, Claudia, Vanessa, Guadalupe, Lek, Louis, Adam, Pierre, Alain, Tom, Jorge, Juan, Manny, Cosett, Gaby, Jerry, Charlie, Roberto, hmmm I know I forgot someone oh yeah Danny and all my other friends, Josh, Jade, Jack, Rusty, Kelly, Zachary, Sasha, Anika, Adam, Chris, Ms. Monem, Arian, Joseph, Scott, Esther, Max, Ms. Delaglio, Adam, David, Erin, John, Bruce, Carlos, Vanessa,  and so many others.

To my family and old friends in Tucson and all around me: Tab, Tom, Ron, Bruce, Sandra,  The Peterson’s especially Poncho, Concha and Quinta, David, Van, Patrick, John, John, Ford, Andy, Jom, Lisa, Amy, Nancy, Manie, Cele, Mumsie, Thelma, David, Dr. and Mrs. Kurtin, Kevin, Mrs. Garrigan, Mrs. Meyerson, Coach Lutz, the Pallets, the Bogards, the Burrs, and Mom, Dad. Mrs. Crane, George Brown, Skip, Mary, Sandy, Suzie, Ana Mary, Cathy, Dan, and hundreds more.

God Bless All Of You.

God forgive us our sins as we forgive those who have trespassed against us.

Just over the last few weeks all the modules below have been offered to SUN and more offers are coming to us every week from all over the world. The offers listed below are all available now. We expected this dumping in light of everything that’s going on in the world. We’re sure you did too.

Sun Electronics, Int., Inc. is the right company at this time to manage this type of SALE. Our track record over the last 40 years (since 1973), combined with the a  reputation for honesty, quality control and prices that are unbelievably low, is what is needed in order to drive the development of cost effective solar electric power forward. It is by these prices and by your own solar endeavors and ingenuity that this development will move forward as fast as possible. We  believe we proved ourselves and our abilities with the sale and shipment of over 31,000 modules (85 containers) to over 700 individual clients worldwide  !

We’re doing that again now but this time we are offering these 100,000 modules, from 78¢/Watt, and 13,000 laminates from  62¢/Watt from major module manufactures world wide.

MODULES:

40,000 pcs. Suntech  modules. 99¢/Watt.

1,000 Sharp Solar Shingle modules, 78¢/Watt.

112 pcs. Sharp 175 Watt, 94¢/Watt.

599 pcs. Kyocera  130 Watt, $1.25/Watt

114 pcs. of 175 Watt modules, 94¢/Watt.

110 pcs. Yingli 160 Watt modules, 94¢/Watt. 

320 pcs. LG modules, 87¢/Watt.

16,000 pcs. 227/230 Watt modules. Major brand. 99¢/Watt.

4,000 pcs. Evergreen ES-E 195 Watt Modules at 87¢/Watt.

Sell 5,000 Sun Sovello 175 to 200 Watts,  94¢/Watt.

4,649 pcs. Suntech 235 Watt Modules. 97¢/Watt.

13,814 pcs. Suntech 180 Watt Modules. 97¢/Watt.

5,404 pcs. Suntech 200 Watt Modules. 97¢/Watt.

4,704 pcs. Suntech 205 Watt Modules. 97¢/Watt.

690 pcs. Suntech 215 Watt Modules. 97¢/Watt.

5,200 pcs. Suntech 220 Watt Modules, 97¢/Watt.

750 pcs. Suntech 225 Watt, 97¢/Watt.

1,070 pcs. Suntech 270 Watt, 97¢/Watt.

440 pcs. Suntech 280 Watt, 97¢/Watt.

LAMINATES:

1,400 Evergreen ES-E Laminates, 62¢/Watt.

100 pcs. LG laminate, 64¢/Watt.

4,000 pcs. of misc. laminates 140 to 200 Watts, 62¢/watt.

*We will provide all the details and post it on our web site ASAP. We will do a mailing to our customer list soon. All of the above modules had been offered to us at the time of this posting. E-mail Louis@sunelec.com and copy Johnkimball@sunelec.com  for details on specifications, model numbers, certifications, etc.

TERMS:

Payment Terms on all orders are prepaid wire transfer or direct deposit. All documentation will be provided. We’ll give you the estimated shipping cost, date of departure and date of arrival to the port of your choice prior to your sending payment.

We can drop ship in full container loads, 20’ or 40‘ only. You can pick from whatever arrival port you wish. We will try our best to consolidate less than container loads from groups of customers to fill full containers, contact us for more information.

Payment Terms on all orders are prepaid wire transfer or direct deposit. All documentation will be provided. We will give you the estimated shipping date and date of arrival to the Port of your choice prior to your sending payment

Payments are used to reserve sales orders.

.

Thank you.

John Kimball        Louis Prophete

Owner                 Sales Manager

If you have any questions email louis@sunelec.com and copy johnkimball@sunelec.com

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

John Kimball

President

Cell 305-710-9645

P.S. Call me and I will explain the solar panels above as best as I can, this a rough draft and an experiment, it may not pan out as I planned exactly, you are welcome to negotiate all aspects of any purchase.

P.P.S Freight is not included. However it is negotiable.

P.P.P.S. And credit cards, except for small amounts less than $1,000 from American Express are the only ones accepted for now read the blog below if you want to know why.

At this point, we believe, we have shipped out all 700 orders. If you have any problem with your Evergreen Auction Modules or Orders please call me, John Kimball, right away, I will do everything I can to assist you. 305-710-9645.

We know of no company in the solar industry who has ever sold 31,000 modules at 78¢/Watt, for any quantity, of either Grade A or Grade B, UL listed modules.

Unfortunately, due to time constraints (we had to sell them all in 7 days), we were not able to calculate the accurate costs of all the shipping, managing, accounting, handling, etc., etc. of the project. It has cost us approximately $1,000,000, so far, I believe. 

During the whole process I tried to keep everyone constantly updated using our blog, website, newsletter, using 13 phone lines, 4 receptionists, a 24 hr. customer service line and listing my personal cell phone.

Here are some of the highlights of the whole affair to date: First the legal department at Evergreen Solar refused to issue the paperwork for release in a timely manner. We had problems with the warehouse were they were were stored and had to send Adam Loucks and Christy Kimball to Belgium. Local customs and transportation in Belgium were also a problem. (We were even told none of the wooden pallets had been properly heat treated and that all 1,100 of them would have to be treated before they could leave). Not all of the purchased modules were in the warehouse, some were in bond in customs from a previous Evergreen customer and they would not release them to us.The ship went to anther port instead of coming directly to Miami as we had been told. We overcame all of these problems except we could not stop the ship from going to Charlotte, N.C. first.

After all of the above, it was our plan to get the modules into Miami by the Dec. 23rd work thru Christmas and New Years and to have all modules shipped out to you by Jan. 8th. It was more difficult than we imagined to handle the warehousing, accounting, and logistics for the shipping of 700 customers. We had simply been naive. To make things harder we received thousands of phone calls and emails, we could not answer them all which only made things worse. In late December, January and early February we were overwhelmed with people demanding to know where their shipments were.  78¢/watt went out the window the only thing that mattered anymore was that we were late. We understood that. Who cares how good the food is if you have to wait two hours to get served.

In December the credit card transaction company we use, a company that processes the charges for Master Card, Visa and Discover called us and told us that they needed to establish a reserve of One Million Five Hundred Thousand Dollars and it would have to be held “indefinitely”. They said they would need to call every single person to see if they had received their orders and were satisfied with the merchandise. (We just failed that test this week after turning in all the invoices and shipping documents – more on that later).

So, we have yet to receive these payments, if you paid by one of these credit cards. So what goes around comes around, now we are the ones who are waiting.

We have had to hire an attorney and hopefully we will get our money from the credit card transaction company some day. However it has already been approximately 5 months since they began holding the money. Believe it or not, the fine print in the contract with the company says they can hold all our money indefinitely.

The good news is we learned allot of important lessons the hard way and that is the best way, I think.

While not intentionally, we were able to help the Evergreen Creditors. You see we left a ton of money on the table with our Auction Bid. We bid 43¢/watt but after the 15% commission for the Auction House, 2.5¢/watt to our auction consultant, and all of the shipping, handling, etc., etc. now at approximately $1,000,000 No other bidder came even close, we blew them out of the water, as well as ourselves. I also made some enemies and clearly pissed off allot of the buyers. I’m sure they will never buy from us again. All I can say is, I and my friends here at Sun Electronics did our best . They were many very difficult days and we are still paying for the whole affair.

However we also got allot of systems installed for people who just waiting for the right moment to make a move and for those hundreds of systems that got installed, we at Sun Electronics feel great about it. Like I said along time ago, as far as energy is concerned this world is like the Titanic. Those with money and brains will be ok other wise who knows, Its good to be self sufficient.

Enjoy your systems.  Please send us a picture to share with the world to show them how it’s done. Pictures of remote solar homes are great to see. Remote solar homes are beautiful and totally cost effective, if you like to live in the middle of unspoiled nature. If you can’t do that, like me, then send us a picture of whatever you did with the modules, home or business application, RV, sailboat, water pumping, resort, or something we haven’t seen before system, they’re all cool, I think.

Best regards,

John

P.S. During all of this, the stress of selling so much, getting it paid for, getting it shipped, the accounting and trying to answer all the phone calls and emails, providing at least a resemblemnce of decent customer service, etc., etc. it took its toll. We lost several employees, among them Ron, Emilio, Onur, Josh, Hector, Maria, and Rand. Like I said, it was extremely hard on us. We wish these people all the best. They all contributed to getting you the best deal so far in solar history, that is, if you can accept our apology for the stress we may have caused you by all the confusion. We were only trying to get everyone a good deal. Unfortunately we cut it too close, we lost approximately $250,000. Please don’t give up on us. We haven’t given up and it was allot harder on us than it was on you, trust me.

I’ve never believed in grid-tied solar energy systems. The only economic sense grid tied solar systems make is for the windfall in incentives the rich get. It’s a scam on the American public and utility rate payers. The biggest economic solar perversion are the solar farms. The opportunity to at least spread the incentives among the people who are paying for them would have been to limit this uneconomical use of solar energy to homeowners and SMALL business’.

Sure I told myself, if they want to dump all this money into a hole I might as well get my share too and use it to promote true cost effective solar. The best system you can put in, is an economical one that stands on its own two feet and that means one that’s off the grid. It’s cost effective from day one when you compare it to the alternatives: noisy, smelly, short lived generators that are expensive to maintain and fuel.

I think were almost as far away from seeing solar generated electricity compete with utility power as we have been. The average cost of electricity in the U.S. is now about 10 cents a Kwh. Solar generated electricity has to be almost 10 times cheaper before it’s competitive.

It’s disgusting to me to see huge 200 and 400 megawatt solar farms going in at what, say ten times the cost of utility power just so a few wealthy people can get fat on an uneconomic system. And then to have a trade embargo sparked by one of the most expensive panel manufacturers in the country against a country that actually provide panels that are twice as competitive but still are miles from making economic sense (the Chinese). God forbid the cost of solar get lower than ten times the cost of utility power. If were going to throw money into a pit lets make sure we dump twice as much and lets make sure its our money and not theirs.

I’ve gone along with grid connected solar systems so long, I’ve started to almost believe in it. It’s a joke, a bad joke wasting billions of dollars of our money. I’ve been telling people this for the last 20 years ever since the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) put in the first grid tied experimental subdivision. Experiment, what experiment were they talking about? And if it was an experiment to see if it would work someday in the distant future, why did everyone in the industry keep installing these systems? For the free money of course. And if it was a house off the grid, the same incentives didn’t apply. Of course not, because it cost $10,000 a mile to install power lines and that alone would make it an intellegient thing to do so why help them lets concentrate on the stupid application. Geez.

I’m sick of reading about companies putting out press releases about their new big multi-megawatt gird connected solar projects. It’s worse than the oil companies humongous profits, at least they earn their money instead of paying for it with 100% of our money. At least we get some gasoline for our cars, with solar you get nothing but a little extra clean air and not much when you consider the pitiful contribution solar makes to our energy supply.

I almost went over the edge but its time someone in the industry stood up and reminded everyone that this grid tied crap is almost a total waste of money.

Yeah solar energy and renewable energy are good for the environment but be practical were not trying to replace fossil fuel because it isn’t going to happen at this cost. Don’t try to pound round pegs into square holes if you love nature so much move to it and then guess what happens ? Then and only then will solar energy be the intelligent way to get your electricity, at least for the next 25 years, I think. If you want to make a statement for solar on your house buy the American Flag. It stands for everything grid tie systems don’t.

John Kimball

Owner

Sun Electronics

JOHN KIMBALL

305-710-9645