The price of solar cells has dropped 300-fold over the last four decades. What is driving this incredible decline and what does it predict for the years to come? Can solar really become the least expensive source of electricity in the long run? Read More
There are few more important questions for the 21st century than how we will power our electric grids. Literally trillions of dollars and are at stake, and possibly even the future of the planet. It’s a good bet that wind and solar will make up the majority of the future grid. But, wind and solar are not the same. Wind turbines benefit from economies of scale. As they get bigger, their costs go down; but only up to a point. By comparison, solar’s cost declines are driven by something even more powerful, economies of volume – the more you make of something, the cheaper it gets. Read More
I recently moderated a panel at the Energy Leaders Symposium called Disruptions in the Energy Industry. This event was hosted by Georgia Tech’s Center for Distributed Energy. To help frame the discussions, I defined a disruption as an industry changing so quickly that incumbents can’t keep up. I listed three drivers threatening to disrupt the power industry: a shift from economies of scale to economies of volumes, a shift from top-down to edge-in, and battery storage. Read More
Critics claim that there simply isn’t enough land in the U.S. to power the country with solar. We dig through the numbers to reveal an answer that might surprise you. Read More
Competition is all about price, features, and customer experience. Right? That’s what business schools have been teaching for decades and it’s largely true. But, if you really want to change an industry, you need to change the rules. You need to create new business models. The untold story behind some of the most disruptive companies… Read More
“There is no backup system to the grid.” – Gretchen Bakke from her book, The Grid: The Fraying Wires Between Americans and Our Energy Future On March 15, 2018, the US government made a chilling announcement. Russian hackers have been successfully infiltrating the US electric grid over the last year, maybe longer. While rumors have been… Read More
Spreadsheets, analysis, and predictions are all great. But nothing compares to the free market if you want to really understand the trajectory of clean energy pricing. A recent bidding process for utility giant, Xcel Energy, just rocked the industry. Bids for clean energy projects including solar, wind, and batteries, came in lower than anything ever… Read More
Utilities are an essential part of our clean energy future. Whether the future grid sees a rise in interconnected microgrids or centralized solar/wind/battery farms or a combination of both, the utilities’ wires and infrastructure are foundations upon which much of it will be built. Navigating the fastest path to clean energy requires the active, engaged… Read More
Michael Liebreich is a really smart guy. He grew up in London and attended Cambridge University to specialize in thermodynamics and nuclear engineering. After graduating in 1984, he became a member of the British Ski team and went on to compete in the world cups and the 1992 Olympics. Along the way, he got an… Read More
Every single solar project, big or small, gets assembled one at a time on a roof or in a field. But what if you could pre-manufacture solar projects in a factory, instead? Could you do to solar what Henry Ford did to cars and make solar even more affordable and available to virtually everyone? What… Read More
