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I have a startup in solar software, and the big thing that I don't think people here realize is that 64% of the installed cost of solar in the U.S. is soft cost
by diafygi 11y ago
I have a startup in solar software, and the big thing that I don't think people here realize is that 64% of the installed cost of solar in the U.S. is soft costs (i.e. not hardware)[1]. The industry is incredibly inefficient when it comes to customer acquisition, marketing, distribution, project development, permitting, monitoring, analytics. etc. There's a huge effort by the DOE[2] and the industry itself[3] to attack soft costs with software and process improvements. The vast majority of innovation in solar over the next decade will be in software.
However, strangely, much of the startup community remains uninvolved. Why? The solar industry is expected to grow by 100-200x over the next 30-40 years[4], even when it's already a $14 billion dollar industry[5]. And yet, this week in SF, there's a huge solar conference[6], and I personally know most of the software companies there (there's only a few dozen of us). Why isn't more of the startup community coming in an "disrupting" solar software along side us? We just got $100k in free money from the DOE. We closed a seed round in less than 6 weeks. Pretty much every solar software company we know (including us) is hiring. Yet when I go to normal bay area startup events, no one there has any any clue that solar is taking off like a rocket ship and their biggest pain points right now are completely solvable with software.
Come join us. In the last few years, the solar industry reached "grid parity", which means that the unsubsidized installed cost is now cheaper than buying power from the grid. That's why this industry is the fastest growing industry in the country. This isn't some subsidy-dependent industry anymore. We work hard and we make real money (while conveniently also saving the planet).
[1]: http://energy.gov/eere/sunshot/reducing-non-hardware-costs http://energy.gov/eere/sunshot/reducing-non-hardware-costs
[2]: http://energy.gov/eere/sunshot/soft-costs http://energy.gov/eere/sunshot/soft-costs
[3]: http://www.solarindustrymag.com/e107_plugins/content/content.php?content.13981 http://www.solarindustrymag.com/e107_plugins/content/content...
[4]: http://www.pvsolarreport.com/the-next-internet/ http://www.pvsolarreport.com/the-next-internet/
[5]: http://www.seia.org/research-resources/solar-industry-data http://www.seia.org/research-resources/solar-industry-data
[6]: https://www.intersolar.us/en/home.html https://www.intersolar.us/en/home.html
- crdoconnor 11y ago>their biggest pain points right now are completely solvable with software. What pain points are those?
- jerf 11y ago"customer acquisition, marketing, distribution, project development, permitting, monitoring, analytics. etc." (I'm not vouching for this, I have no personal experience.)
- diafygi 11y agoYep, you'd be amazed at how much solar work is still done in Excel and on pen and paper.
- spathi_fwiffo 11y agoI imagine most contractors for all forms of construction are still working on paper or in spreadsheets. What makes solar so different that some organizational software will slash consumer prices? I guess from a sales, customer acquisition, permitting point of view at least. I guess if we are talking advanced mathematics to pick out optimal installation patterns and angles (for fixed position panels), maybe this is where the software would be useful.
- kfk 11y agoCool, I have a friend working here http://www.3megawatt.com http://www.3megawatt.com in Munich. I had few discussions with him about their analytics solution and the solar industry in this regard - very interesting stuff. It looks like a lot of value for the solar industry would be just in copying existing solutions in other sectors into this one. I mean, analytics and finance (accruals) is a (partially) solved problem in many industries, but not in solar. They were now talking to rebuild their software infrastructure in Django, maybe I should join them.
- diafygi 11y agoYou should definitely consider joining them! We aren't going to find enough talent from within the existing energy industry, so we'd love to have people come in from outside.
- IkmoIkmo 11y agoHow does it differ from other countries? I've heard Germany's installation costs per watt are about 60% of the US rate, even though they access mostly the same market to procure panels, and that their customer aquisition, marketing costs etc are much lower. I guess some of it has to do with a national feed in tariff that generates a ton of easy inbound leads, but I'd love to hear the subtleties. (what is your startup btw)
- diafygi 11y agoGreat question. I'm not sure. Most of the research I've seen on this subject compares the U.S. and Germany. http://emp.lbl.gov/sites/all/files/german-us-pv-price-ppt.pdf http://emp.lbl.gov/sites/all/files/german-us-pv-price-ppt.pd... My startup is UtilityAPI.com.
- sremani 11y agoThanks for the links, I was thinking about getting into Solar Energy Industry for a while now.
- kstenerud 11y agoSent an email to your startup's info address.
- _vn5r 11y agoAre you open to remote workers?