Solar designer and architect goes public

Shares of Envision Solar edged up 4.29 percent in the company's first day of trading as a publicly traded company. OK, so the stock (EVSI is the symbol over-the-counter) closed as only 36.5 cents per share, so it wasn't that much of a fluctuation, but the company did see a rather nice trading volume of 1.2 million shares, which isn't so bad for a first day.

Envision is worth watching because of its pitch to help claim unused space for solar projects. For example, it helped Dell create solar arrays in the parking lot at its headquarters, where they can help with electric vehicle charge and on-location solar power needs. The design at Dell is called its Solar Grove design.

In fact, that's one of the things that makes Envision interesting: It has created a number of preconfigured array configurations, including the Solar Grove, the Solar Tree, LifePort and so on. The design below is called the Solar Barn.

To date, Envision Solar has been involved with more than 9 megawatts of projects. Aside from Dell, other customers include McDonalds, and Johnson & Johnson.