SolarWorld Amidst Uncertainty

Solar energy is turning out to be a widely accepted renewable energy alternative. It is considered as the cleanest and abundantly available source of energy. Adoption of this source for energy generation has been made possible by technological advancements. The United States has realized the potential of the solar energy but hasn’t been able to exploit the technology until recently. Since 2009, the US has seen a significant growth in consumption of solar energy. Efficiency of solar cells, tax credits, state policies, increasing public awareness on environmental pollution have resulted in increasing use of solar energy. Although a key reason for this growth has been declining prices facilitated by cheaper and efficient imported modules. American solar cell manufacturers are unable to compete with cheap and efficient imported modules and have sought the help of the International Trade Commission (ITC) to impose tariffs on them. Although tariffs would help these two failing manufacturing companies, it could negatively impact the growth of the solar industry as whole. This report studies the impact of the ITC verdict on the solar industry and SolarWorld and also proposes the direction of the outcome considering social, technological, environmental, economic and political aspects

Evaluation of Smart Home Hubs

A smart home hub is a hardware device that connects the devices on a home automation network and controls communications among them. The devices on a home automation or smart home network might include thermostats, light bulbs, wall outlets and switches, door locks, energy monitors, window coverings, appliances, motion sensors, etc. With a smart hub, all of these smart devices can be controlled using a single app. In spite of being very useful devices, smart hubs have their limitations. Certain smart hubs are only compatible with certain smart devices, whereas others support a limited number of languages. Some operate well only over a short distance (about 15 feet). Some hubs support more smart devices than others, while certain hubs can connect to more devices simultaneously than others. These limitations present a question to consumers as to which smart hub will best suit their needs. This project proposes a hierarchical decision model (HDM) to help consumers decide which smart hub alternative is best for them, based on their needs. The HDM is coupled with a pairwise comparison method in order to evaluate all possible alternatives. The model incorporates various criteria for smart hubs such as range of operation, communication protocols supported, number of devices supported, etc for various smart hubs available in today\u27s market, thus providing the consumer with the right information and feedback needed to purchase the smart hub that suits him/her best. Four alternatives for smart hubs were used in this model, namely Samsung SmartThings, VeraSecure, Wink2 and Securifi Almond 3. Rankings were assigned to these alternatives based on experts’ opinions used in the HDM. Results concluded that the SamsungSmartThings is the best alternative for the model used, followed by Wink2 and Securifi Almond 3. This indicated that initial cost, number of protocols supported by the hub and ease of use were the most important criteria considered to achieve the desired objective of selecting the appropriate smart hub