Our house in LA where we spent two and a half months this past winter has a solar panel on its roof. That panel generates enough electricity to heat and cool the house and charge the Tesla we own so that when I’m driving around LA, I’m using non-carbon based energy to get around. I would bet a lot of electric car owners in Southern California charge their cars with solar energy.
I have told this little tidbit to many people since this winter because I feel like its a glimpse into the future. And the reaction I often get is “that is awesome. I want to do that.”
If electric cars are the future, will they also be the thing that finally makes solar take off? Or will there be some other catalyst?
The economics of solar has always been challenging. Ten year paybacks are not the path to rapid adoption. I believe that the cost of solar has come down a lot and that might reduce the payback times but energy costs have also come down a lot too so I don’t know if we’ve really seen payback times decline that much.
We don’t invest in cleantech at USV so I am not particularly well versed in this topic. But instinctively it feels to me that wide adoption of solar is inevitable and we just need a catalyst to make that happen.
Maybe that will be electric cars. Or maybe it will be something else. I’m interested in what folks here at AVC think about this question.
