Published by Rhonda Dibachi under Sustainable Products

My friends and family members know that I work in the solar business, and they often send me links leading to neat solar products, like the solar tree designed by Vivienne Muller that I blogged about recently. It recharges your gadgets, beautifully.

Or this cool umbrella, which doesn’t look like your average Smith and Hawken purchase:

Or what about this one? It’s a solar powered outdoor speaker system—very cool looking:

Now, I really like these solar curtains:

But, alas and alack, they’re still on the drawing board. Not so good for an impatient engineer like me.

While I enjoy the eye candy, I’m usually searching in vain for the “add to cart” button. When it’s nowhere to be found, I realize that the design is still at the concept stage. Oh, Solar Gadget, you’re such a tease!

Before I start to think too badly of the designers who posted their product ideas, I reflect back to my own experience trying to bring one of these inventions to market. It’s a lot harder than it looks.

Late last year, I found a gorgeous solar design while browsing the Internet, then noticed that it was not for sale. I contacted the designer. He had posted the product on his web portfolio, and it was picked up by a number of design blogs such as MoCo Loco, TreeHugger, and ecofriend. The design was to be exhibited at an upcoming MoMA event and sounded like the perfect first product for my fledgling solar products company.

In our attempt to transform the design into reality, we found that the plan called for non-standard solar cells, a special-sized battery, and a non-existent lighting specification. The good news: much engineering discovery work and several prototypes later, we had come up with a workable engineering solution. The bad news: we also estimated that the total cost to manufacture the item would top $2,500. D’oh!

What does this tell us? Beauty of  design, while a critical element in the product’s appeal, is only one element in the overall picture. It’s a lot harder to come up with a product that is both green, works well, and hits a realistic price point. If a designer is working in isolation, a lot happens after he or she combines a few solar cells with an LED and a battery, then produces a Photoshop image of the creation.

The materials and the solar cells can be very pricey. Since the solar industry is still in its infancy, companies are struggling to standardize a solar technology platform that integrates all the components, starting with the gathering of photons and ending with the lighting of a room.  Until standards are defined, promoted, and adopted, however, the state of the technology is roll-your-own.

Even more challenging than the pure technology issues is the talent required to pull all these disparate elements together. That crosses over many disciplines: electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, power systems design, lighting design, industrial design, and CAD design. Bringing together such a wide variety of expertise is not only complicated, it’s costly. And we haven’t even reached the manufacturing or marketing stages.

Sounds like a big wallet is needed. Maybe I can store it in this solar powered purse:

Oops, not available yet! While I’m glad to see the number of solar inventions is increasing, the translation across disciplines is no easy feat in the baby-stepping solar technology.

So the next time I see a mythical solar product on the web, like these sunshades…

…I promise not to say, “Dang, why don’t those lazy designers just get off their AutoCADs and make the stupid thing!” I will instead murmur a little prayer and hope that, in the next few years, I will be able to buy one.

Let us know of your favorite solar product-in-waiting. We can share the wait together.