A couple interesting developments in the Solar power world:
1. Interesting article here on the impact homeowner solar is already impacting electric utilities. From the article:
Barclays recently downgraded the entire U.S. electric utilities sector to “underweight” on the threat posed by widespread adoption of solar-storage.
So if Wall Street is pulling their money from electric utilities, could be a harbinger of bad times ahead. Utilities have been trying to fight back with surcharges and fees for home installed power, but with the costs of solar dropping between 5 & 10% a year that won’t be enough to stop the momentum.
2. Lots of creative ideas around implementing solar power. One of the more interesting that is starting to get traction is Solar Roadways. The premise is intriguing, lots of solar energy wasted on hot pavement around the world – why not build roads out of material that will capture that? One would think the incremental cost of building roads or parking lots out of solar panels would be or will be cost competitive. Business Insider has an update on the project here. While I think its unrealistic to retrofit roads with these panels, new projects seem like it may make sense in the long term.