I work in solar, and here's some quick facts: 1. 1 out of 78 jobs created in the U.S. last year were solar jobs[1]. 2. There are more solar employees in Calif

I work in solar, and here's some quick facts: 1. 1 out of 78 jobs created in the U.S. last year were solar jobs[1]. 2. There are more solar employees in California than utility employees[2]. 3. Soft costs (non-hardware) were recently 64% of the installed cost of solar[3]. 4. Solar is expected to reach a load defection point (i.e. cheaper to leave the grid) in most places in the next 10-15 years[4]. 5. Energy over the next 25 years is a potential $200 trillion opportunity[5]. Like OP's article states, this industry's hardware has gotten really cheap, but the software in the industry hasn't kept up in places. So much so, in fact, that an entire startup accelerator program in the bay area, Powerhouse[6], has been created to try and attract tech entrepreneurs into the solar industry to make the next generation of solar software. My startup recently went through the program, and being a part of this industry is one of the most empowering and rewarding things I've ever done. It's one of those extremely rare instances where you can have a solid business model and a positive impact on the world. And we need all the help it can get. Solar expected to grow 100-200x over the next 25 years[7], but it won't happen if smart people don't join in. Smart grid, machine learning, energy storage, demand response, customer acquisition, logistics, energy efficiency, inventory tracking, IoT, security, and many more software areas are currently in the dark ages in energy. Solar, wind, nuclear, geothermal, storage, and other clean energy sources have to replace 87% of the worlds energy in the next 32 years[8]. PLEASE HELP US! If you're a tech entrepreneur, and want to do something that matters, please please please consider doing a startup in solar or other clean energy industry. To start, if you're in the bay area, there's a hackathon next weekend around solar software[9]. I encourage you to come and learn more about solar and software in the clean energy sector. [1]: http://energy.gov/eere/articles/1-78-new-jobs-america-solar-job http://energy.gov/eere/articles/1-78-new-jobs-america-solar-... [2]: http://www.calseia.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=231 http://www.calseia.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=art... [3]: http://energy.gov/eere/sunshot/reducing-non-hardware-costs http://energy.gov/eere/sunshot/reducing-non-hardware-costs [4]: http://blog.rmi.org/blog_2015_04_07_report_release_the_economics_of_load_defection http://blog.rmi.org/blog_2015_04_07_report_release_the_econo... [5]: https://www.citivelocity.com/citigps/ReportSeries.action?recordId=41 https://www.citivelocity.com/citigps/ReportSeries.action?rec... [6]: https://powerhouse.solar/ https://powerhouse.solar/ [7]: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-23/the-way-humans-get-electricity-is-about-to-change-forever http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-23/the-way-hu... [8]: http://www.pvsolarreport.com/the-next-internet/ http://www.pvsolarreport.com/the-next-internet/ [9]: https://suncode.splashthat.com/ https://suncode.splashthat.com/