Summary

The future of renewable energy infrastructure

Problem

1. High dependence on batteries
   1. Currently, while renewable energy sources like solar panels and wind turbines are really efficient at generating electricity when conditions are optimal, they’re not reliable in generating electricity all the time (whereas electricity consumption is round the clock)
   2. Therefore, electricity from renewable energy sources needs to be stored in batteries so that it can be used when there is no generation occurring
   3. However, lithium ion batteries are terrible for the environment in their production and mining as well as their disposal (as they are generally not recycled properly)
   4. They are also expensive (~$10k) and bulky for installation in homes
2. Electric grid is not clean today
   1. While there has been a lot of progress in electrifying machinery (cars, trucks, ships), most of the electricity that’s powering the grid is from oil-sources and therefore it is much more inefficient to use electricity from the grid than to directly use fuel as a source of combustion
   2. The means of production of electricity need to be simultaneously worked on, not just the means of consumption
3. Economies with abundant access to renewable (solar) energy don’t have infrastructure to monetize it
   1. Traditionally, the biggest and most powerful economies have been the ones with oil
   2. In thinking of green energy production, the countries that have the best access to renewable sources of energy are not necessarily the same as those with access to oil (namely the ones along the equator for intense sunlight all around the year)
   3. However, there countries don’t have the infrastructure to capture and to distribute (and therefore to monetize) the energy they could be producing

Solution

A global electric grid operates on the principle that “it’s always sunny somewhere”.

Rather than having to store electricity in order to use it when there’s no generation occurring because of bad conditions, power can be drawn from other parts of the world which do have good conditions and are producing an abundance of electricity.

As a simple analogy, if it’s night time in New York and therefore isn’t able to generate solar power, the city can draw power from Singapore (where it is day time and is currently generating solar).

Long term vision

I know this would be a success when any home in countries like India is able to easily set up a solar panel to not only light up their community sustainably possibly for the first time, but even more so to generate extra income by selling a resource they have in heap abundance.

Why now/why us

As we inch closer to not only running out of oil but also losing out environment due to global warming, it becomes more pertinent than ever to find solutions with alternative energy sources.

We have also seen how, recently with the Ukraine invasion by Russia, political events can send gas prices sky rocketing across the world, affecting billions of people at once.

Major economies and governments like the US are not incentivized to run a project like this because it requires massive capital and they won’t get support to use tax dollars to fund it.

Existing energy corporations won’t embark on this because, similarly, the capital required would post a huge risk to derailing their existing business.

Therefore, a young, determined startup needs to step up and take charge to lead this project.

Business model

Potentially make initial installation free and have a high take rate % on sale of electricity. Take rate can reduce over time to offload more responsibility onto owner to upgrade their own infrastructure.