Note: Because our firm specializes in GIS-based site acquisitions for utility scale solar developers, we are attending the Solar Power International conference in Anaheim this week.  Also, I’ll be tweeting from the event, but you can follow all of the SPI tweets at http://twitter.com/#search?q=%23solpwr09

Day One of Solar Power International is in the books and the first thing that comes to mind when I think of the convention is enthusiastic hopefulness.  There are apparently some 11,000 20,000 people in Anaheim for the convention.  All are there for business interests.  I think that’s a stunning statement about the optimism that exists for solar as an investment.  This is a convention that is being paid for with either at risk capital, or profits.  In either case, to see such participation in a weak economy speaks volumes.  Some thoughts:

• The exhibit hall is fantastic.  It’s full of huge exhibits that are visually stunning and each exhibit is accompanied by 4 to 5 people evangelizing the benefits of that company’s product.  I’ll try to post some pictures tomorrow.
• California’s long permitting times were mentioned a number of times during the day.  It’s a Catch-22 that the Golden State has some of the most favorable conditions for utility scale solar projects, and yet has an environmental process that is difficult to navigate.  “Welcome to Ka-lee-fornia!” (in a really bad Ah-nuld impression).
• I attended workshops on expediting project timelines and financing utility scale projects.  There was a lot of overlap for our business in each as the project expedition workshop included discussion of GIS-based site selection, while the utility scale financing workshop was informative as all of our clients will have to contend with financing once the projects are permitted.  Our firm has been doing GIS-based site selection for approximately 18 months, so it was interesting to see that another firm doing similar (though not competing) work was featured in the presentation panel.
• I have had two very productive meetings with clients or prospects.  I would chalk both up to the benefits of experience.  We’ve been doing this long enough now that we know what we are talking about, and clients can see that.  Real estate firms are noticeably absent from SPI, so I see wide open opportunity.

Stay tuned, more to come tomorrow.  Follow me on Twitter for updates during the day.

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