Green Energy Business

[chowner]

Hello everyone,

First of all, I am very happy to find this forum. There aren't many business forums that are for Green Energy.

I am based in Vancouver, BC, Canada and looking to start a green energy business locally (can even go all over North America once in the niche). You gust must be thinking that "green energy" is a really broad field and I need to narrow it down to something more specific. I know that the future is very bright in Environment Friendly business as big companies have started to gear up to be environment friendly.

The problem that I am having is, I can't decide as to what kind of business can I start in this field? Investment for a setup is not a problem for me as I have resources for it. The other BIG BIG problem is our government. The electricity for most of Canada is provided by BC Hydro. But BC Hydro already has a power smart program and they have been advertising it in a very big way (TVs, radios, newspapers etc) and now its pretty popular too. So I am worried that if I start something similar to BC Hydro Power Smart program, then I might not be as successfull in this industry.

I am not allowed to post the BC Hydro Power Smart website, but if you search in Google for "BC Hydro Power Smart" , it will be in first 1-3 results.

Please do let me know as what I can do. Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Chris

[chowner]

anyone with some advice?

[Solar Water Heating Ltd]

Hi Chowner,

First of all, you aren't suffering from the biggest problem entrepreneurs usually face, which is investment! You don't necessarily have to consider something similar to BC Hydro. You're obviously considering competing with the big fish here, and unless you are willing to adopt similar marketing practices (after getting the inafrastructure in place that is) I wonder how much time it'll take for the business to be truly successful.

You could consider a sector where green energy hasn't been adopted yet and you could help the environment by helping that sector shift to green resources and being the first player in that particular sector can help your business exponentially. We are into solar water heaters and their sales are increasing everyday. You could also consider getting into electricity generation from solar power. Nowadays, people are coming up with more ingenious solutions to the energy problem and you could keep a tab on researches going on in colleges and other institutes for inspiration. I've heard biomass is catching up and there are places working on extracting fuels from plants and they are expected to perfect the extraction process very soon.

There's a lot of options. Surf the Internet and you'll find a lot of information on green energy possibilities. I hope this helps a bit!

Neha