Danny Kennedy is Sungevity’s President. A long time social entrepreneur, Danny has achieved global recognition as an environmental activist, spokesperson, and opinion leader.
Most recently, Danny was the Campaigns Manager for Greenpeace Australia Pacific where he managed 35 staff in 5 offices in 4 countries. In 2001, he ran Greenpeace’s California Clean Energy Campaign, the successes of which helped lead to the current California Solar Initiative.
Danny was the founder and first Executive Director of Project Underground and has served on several nonprofit boards. He has a Bachelor of Science from Macquarie University in Sydney and dropped out of Law School there. Danny lives in Oakland with his wife Miya Yoshitani and two daughters.
There’s been a lot of negativity around the solar space in recent weeks because it has been hard going for some companies. And I don’t want to belittle their pain – manufacturers have big stockpiles and if they’re publically listed their share price is down; project developers can’t get bank finance or government cash fast enough, despite the stimulus; and installers may be seeing some consumer sentiment dropping in places.
But please don’t think that’s all she wrote. The future of photovoltaics is bright as the sun!
Just for one example of how serious a contender PV is becoming, consider Spain. Right now that beautiful country is copping a lot of blame because of changes in the incentive structure that have led to a major drop in solar sales there, large and small. Indeed, little old Spain is being held responsible for most of the oversupply currently being experienced by the PV manufacturing industry, which I think could be seen differently…
San Francisco has been host to some big solar industry events this month, especially the Intersolar North America conference. In the middle of a recession, it is hard to walk the halls of a trade show of an industry dominated by manufacturers and not feel some pain. And it has been tough – industry revenues are forecast to be down 40% this year. But hopefully most of these players know that what doesn’t kill them, makes them stronger.
While some analysts are still down on the sector, and in some cases for good reasons of too much capital in the wrong places, most are bullish for next year. Some forecast 60% growth for 2011 and beyond. Certainly our experience is that there’s a lot of residential consumers out there that still want to go solar as a great way to save themselves money.
Editor’s Note: The is a guest contribution by Danny Kennedy, President of Sungevity. This is part of a series from the CEO’s of major solar companies. You can follow the complete series here.
Sometimes it is hard to contemplate what a good news story our industry – solar sales and installation – and the broader clean energy economy really represents. I was reminded on Monday at the graduation ceremony [...]
Editor’s Note: The is a guest contribution by Danny Kennedy, President of Sungevity. This is the fourth post in a series from the CEO’s of major solar companies. You can follow the complete series here.
Like a tide turning, there’s a big shift happening in the solar market that many people aren’t really seeing because they’re bobbing about on an ocean of opportunity. The implications are huge in terms of who will get capital and attention in the industry, and the trend should lift all boats and take this solution to climate change further than before.
