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The tech jobs that'll profit most from the green energy boom

• diafygi 12y ago
  For solar, hardware prices have decreased so much that soft costs are now the significant majority (64%)[1] of installation costs. This means that in an industry that's growing exponentially[2], there's enormous opportunity in improving efficiency with software. Why aren't there more software startups in solar? In my experience, it's for two reasons: 1. Most entrepreneurs associate the energy sector with hardware. Hopefully, the DOE's publicity of the soft cost problem[3] in solar will help change this perception. 2. The pain points are really only visible to energy industry insiders. For my startup (UtilityAPI), the pain point we're solving was only really visible after a year of working in the industry. [1] - http://cleantechnica.com/2013/12/12/nrel-soft-costs-now-largest-piece-solar-installation-costs/ http://cleantechnica.com/2013/12/12/nrel-soft-costs-now-larg... [2] - http://www.seia.org/research-resources/solar-industry-data http://www.seia.org/research-resources/solar-industry-data [3] - http://energy.gov/eere/sunshot/soft-costs http://energy.gov/eere/sunshot/soft-costs