Bringing Solar Down from the Mountaintop

Here at Applied we talk a lot about scale, because ultimately scale is the key to unlocking solar power’s potential to transform our energy economy. The reason for this is simple: scale drives down costs. This is the essential lesson of solar’s historical development, and it has important implications for solar’s future.

Solar got its start in space, powering satellites. The logic was obvious: how else could you get consistent power to a satellite? Cost didn’t matter because there was no alternative, and those first panels were actually pretty expensive. But we learned valuable lessons, the technology progressed, and eventually it became cost effective to bring solar down to the remote corners of the earth, to places like mountaintops. Costs had fallen to the point that it was cheaper and more reliable to have a solar set-up than it was to have someone schlep up the mountain every few months with another tank of gas – or to build a massive power infrastructure.

This progression continues to present day: we’ve taken solar from the mountaintop down to rural villages and from rural villages to the rooftops of homes and businesses throughout the urban landscape. At every step, the pattern has been consistent: solar entered a market, costs came down, and pretty soon a new market opened up.

Today, we find ourselves at the cusp of solar’s next big step: the jump to utility scale. Solar is already competitive with other forms of production at peak consumption, and if we can put in place the right incentives and unlock the utility market, the historical lesson is clear: scale will continue to drive costs down, and solar’s future will be a bright one.