Dwell 2015 09

energy 360
Sun Spots
Some homebuilders have already committed to making solar panels standard in all new homes.
Lennar Corporation has put photovoltaic installations on thousands of rooftops in
more than 100 SunStreet communities in California. The company plans to extend the program
to Colorado and Nevada soon.
“ In the near future,
the question
won’t be if you have
solar, but what
kind you have.”
—Scott Franklin,
CEO of Lumos
Solar, a solar
module company
Q&A:
Hal Harvey,
CEO of Energy
Innovation
The head of a clean energy
think tank shares his vision.
What do you think the next five years
will bring in solar power?
There’s been an extraordinary collapse
in the price of solar panels in the past
five years; more than an 80 percent
price reduction. And the frontiers for
further price reduction are significant.
What does it cost to get something engineered,
permitted, hooked up? Just as a
benchmark, the Germans install solar
panels at half the price that we do
because they have made further
advances on soft costs. So a 50 percent
reduction awaits us by clearing up
bureaucratic clutter. That is a big deal.
So solar’s big challenge now is to
clear up this red tape?
Yes. With these dramatic price drops,
solar becomes a contender for both
electricity markets and customer
loyalty. And when you become a mainstream
player, you get grown-up
enemies. Solar is disruptive to energy
markets. It used to be that German utilities
made all their money in the energy
markets in the middle of the day when
prices were high. Then solar comes
along and the power prices become
incredibly low because sunshine is free.
So all the conventional generators >
60 SEPTEMBER 2015 DWELL