Jigar Shah brings solar power to doorstep

NEW YORK: Last year, hybrid cars zoomed toward mainstream popularity. This year, it could be solar power. “Cleantech has captured the imagination of people. Solar power can be used anywhere from the Arctic to remote villages in India, supplying clean green energy,” said Jigar Shah, the 31-year-old founder and CEO of Sun Edison LLC, a Baltimore company that installs cutting-edge solar projects.

Few can ignore the buzz surrounding solar energy companies as record oil, gas, coal prices and worries about greenhouse gas emissions spark interest in alternatives to dwindling fossil fuels. In the US, one of the world’s largest solar energy markets, this level of investor excitement has not been seen since the Internet boom in the late ‘90s, and the sun is definitely shining on Shah’s young company. 

Sun Edison has been a particular draw with high-profile customers like organic supermarket chain Whole Foods and Staples and equally high-profile investors. In June last year, Shah wrapped up a $60 million fund, financed by Goldman Sachs and Hudson United Bank to oversee BP Solar’s installation of sleek solar electric systems in a string of Staples and Whole Foods Market stores.

Shah’s company has also been in the news for creating a stellar business model. For years, solar power was too expensive. Then Sun Edison decided to think outside the box. It created a model where it helps qualifying companies and municipalities go solar with no upfront cost. “Sun Edison pays for, installs, owns and operates solar installations. Customers pay a fixed rate that is at or below current electricity prices for the solar electricity generated from these panels for ten years,” said Shah.

Average US electricity prices, by state, now range from 5 cents to 35 cents per kilowatt hour (kwh). “In Hawaii, for example, where there are a lot of state subsidies and incentives for solar power we can give  to our customer a 20 per cent saving,” said Shah, a mechanical engineer who also has a MBA from the Robert H Smith School of Business.

Shah said he got his entrepreneur genes from his Gujarati physician father — Hasmukh Shah. “My dad was not a businessman but he sniffed opportunity in setting up a practice in a small place called Tampico in Illinois. It had no other doctor so he just cornered the market,” laughed Shah. Tampico has a population of just 900 people but it does have claim to fame — former US President Ronald Regan was born in a second story apartment situated over the village’s local bank.  “But whichever way you look at it my father also provided a key service to Tampico which had no doctor. I see my job in the same light,” said Shah who never misses an opportunity to spread the gospel of solar power. 

He says it will be cost-effective in the long-run for an energy-starved country like India to harness the power of the sun. “In the long-run, solar power will expand to provide the US 20 to 25 per cent of its energy needs,” forecast Shah.

“Now instead of copying western countries Indian villages which don’t have electricity and lack power infrastructure can simply leapfrog technology by adopting solar power. India has the expertise it just needs the vision.” 

The future for Sun Edison looks sunny indeed. The market for solar power is set to grow at an annual clip of up to 35 per cent until 2010, as other countries follow in the United States’ footsteps with policies designed to spur the development of renewable energy resources.

Even hard-nosed Wall Street financiers are now catching a ride on the $14 billion global solar market.