Over the course of 2010 and 2011, more than 1.1 gigawatts of commercial solar was installed in the U.S. Nearly 800 megawatts of that capacity came on-line in 2011, according to GTM Research. At the end of 2010, SunPower was far and away the largest commercial installer on the block, with an estimated 10.7 percent of national market share.

One year later, SunPower's share has slipped to 9 percent, while Solar City's has increased to 6 percent.

Source: GTM Research

SunPower had a massive fourth quarter, installing nearly 20 megawatts of commercial projects in Arizona, California and New Jersey. This is nearly as much as the company installed in those states in all of 2010. Prominent in both the utility and commercial market segments, SunPower sticks to its core competency, which is installing large systems. In 2011, the average system size installed by the company was nearly 1.4 megawatts. In California, where the maximum system size allowed under the CSI program is 1 megawatt, SunPower’s average installation was 965 kilowatts. Go big or go home seems to be the commercial development team’s motto. 

While SunPower focuses on larger systems, SolarCity has been quietly building its commercial business by focusing on smaller jobs. In California in 2010, SolarCity barely cracked the top-10 commercial developers with just 1.8 percent market share. Though the firm installed 44 systems under the CSI program, the average system size was just 36 kilowatts. Compare this to SPG Solar, the number one commercial installer in California in 2010, which averaged 650kW per installation. After honing its practices in the small-commercial market, and possibly with some help from strategic acquisitions, SolarCity has begun to push into the traditional commercial players’ arena. In Q4, SolarCity’s average commercial system size was approximately 250 kilowatts, a significant step up from the previous year.

Source: GTM Research

Rounding out the top-five commercial installers are Chevron Energy Solutions, Rosendin Electric and Vanguard Energy Partners. Chevron is well known in the U.S. solar industry, but the latter two may leave some readers, and even solar-industry veterans, scratching their heads. Rosendin has been involved in solar for some time, but generally as an EPC partner. In the last year, however, the firm has emerged as a legitimate developer both in the U.S. and Ontario. According to the company’s website, Rosendin has 100 megawatts in construction and more than 500 megawatts in development. Vanguard has existed as a pure-play developer for few years now, but it was not until 2011 that the company started to emerge a leader in the East Coast market. In Q4 alone, Vanguard installed 8.2 megawatts in New Jersey, second only to SunPower’s 11.1 megawatts' worth of projects. The company is also actively installing throughout New England and New York, including a project that will be the world’s highest elevated PV array on Deutsche Bank’s NYC headquarters.

One question many readers may have is, where are the traditional leaders SunEdison, Borrego, SPG, REC, and the like? They’re still in the top 20, but have either suffered from increased competition from new entrants like Rosendin or altered their business strategies. In the past year, many construction and large-electrical contracting firms, such as Swinerton Builders and Stellar Energy, have moved into commercial development. Most of these firms have previously acted as an EPC partner on large installations, but nothing more. By leveraging existing financial partnerships or substantial balance sheets, moving into project development was the next logical step to maximize revenue in the solar space and to help make up for a downturn in new construction.  

As in the residential market, the commercial development space is seeing a fair bit of consolidation. Combined, the top-five firms held 25 percent of the market in 2011; the top 20 accounted for 53 percent. The latter figure is up from 45 percent in 2010. Moving forward, the top installers will only continue to grab more market share. With every passing quarter, project development practices are honed, helping to bring down soft costs. Investors, both traditional banking institutions and large corporations like Google, are becoming more comfortable with the well-known development firms, thus increasing their access to capital, even after the expiration of the 1603 Treasury Grant. Finally, proven success developing and installing projects allows these top firms to negotiate the best possible component prices from Tier-1 providers, which are aggressively pursuing supply agreements with top development firms.

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GTM Research is now tracking top commercial and residential installers and module suppliers in the U.S. solar market. After collecting over 1.5 GW worth of project level data we have been able to produce the most comprehensive market share estimates available for the U.S. solar market. This product provides quarterly national market share estimates for installers and module suppliers, as well as state-by-state breakdowns to California, New Jersey, Arizona, Maryland, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Ohio and New Mexico. Combined, the data from these states represents well over 60% of installed solar capacity in the U.S. GTM Research separately tracks state installatiion totals in the U.S. Solar Market Insight reports, which are published on conjunction with SEIA. 

GTM Research also lists major customers of the top-10 module suppliers in the major state markets of California and New Jersey. This data represents more than 845 megawatts' worth of installations spanning both 2010 and 2011. For more information, please email our Research Sales Team.

Go Green

(a) Comfort: the comfort that the artificial green grass is definitely comparable to the comfort provided by actual green grass. The only real difference is that with the artificial green grass, you get an extra rubber fitting just below the greens that will actually provide your feet an incomparable comfort level should you ever decide to walk through your garden, across your finely trimmed lawn, without any footwear. The bouncy soft undersurface also comes in handy when you have rambunctious children (or even a couple of rambunctious adults on NFL Sunday) to worry about – you can rest assured that anyone who falls on the grass will have a soft and safe landing. And yes, this extends to commercial use at theme parks and sports facilities.

(b) Safety: a benefit unto itself. The right choice for an aesthetic garden also provides the best safety measures for use on commercial properties, including theme parks and sports facilities.  This is especially realized when you have large numbers of people utilizing a given space, as the rubber top of the artificial green grass is relatively easy to keep clean and you can  virtually assure that people are not be injured as a result of a fall on the grass.
(c) Relaxation: the rich green coloration of the artificial green grass provides a cool soothing feel to the eyes that actually helps to relax the mind. Surrounding yourself with a fresh green lawn is actually a proven way of relieving stress and improving your moods.

Once upon a time, the only individuals and businesses who could afford to have fresh green lawns were those who had the money to pay for gardeners and professional landscape designers. Once upon a time, the upkeep of robust green grass really did demand massive amounts of time, effort, and money.
To be able to manage a real grass lawn properly, you need a substantial water supply and the means to trim it and weed the entire surface of the grass on a regular basis. During the summer and winter, you are also faced with environmental or weather related challenges (summer sun can dry out grass and the winter weather can damage its development, undermining its appearance).

Not anymore though.
The development of artificial grass has provided homeowners and grounds managers with the means of enjoying green grass without the hassle of having to trim and water it on a regular basis. It’s even more recently that artificial grass has become affordable, but these days, the installation of artificial grass can certainly be considered an investment for many garden owners. Although the prices of the installation may seem expensive, the benefits of the set up are realized very quickly and most artificial grass pays for itself in no time.
Packed with all the necessary features needed to make the entire set-up more self-sustaining and well kept on its own, the artificial grass works are most often than not considered to be most practical for use especially for those who could not provide much time and expensive budgeting for keeping their lawn grasses as green as possible.

There are several different types of artificial grass to choose from. Most are not only easy to install, they are cost effective for the value that they add to your property and very easy to maintain.

For that super natural grass feel and look, we offer Fresh Cut 67 and 107, which come with monofilament or dual-filament (67 versus 107), a polyethylene finish, sand filling, and urethane backing. If you’re looking for a very high quality natural feel, we also offer Classic 36, Realistic, Saw Grass, Turf Lawn 26, True Grass XL42, True Grass XL24, Sod Grass, and Classic 48, all of which offer varying degrees of the most natural finishes and feels available, plus high quality draining features in some cases, along with other additional safety features suitable for application in larger spaces.
As expert developers of golf courses, we also offer a range of turfs that are especially designed to be durable for sporting activities, including the Iron Woods and Bump and Run designs, which are serviceable on golf courses for chipping, driving, and t-boxes; Player’s Choice, Plush One, Putt One, True Putt, All Sport, Sport Turf, True Putt, Special, T-Turf.

Call National Greens today to find out how soon you can start enjoying your very own green lawn.