“Solar plus batteries will be a major piece of power infrastructure in the world in a decade.”
COVER STORY: ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY
Kerim Baran has been working in the solar energy field for the last decade. He sold his company CivicSolar in 2019 and is now working on his new passion project.
What is SolarAcademy?
It is a social learning platform for the solar energy industry to create more efficient flows of information, solutions, and capital. Its goal is to increase human consciousness about solar energy and to elicit change.
What are the challenges with solar energy? What is the outlook?
Solar panels have gotten 200 times cheaper in the last 40 years. Batteries are the last frontier to enable mainstream solar use, and they are also following a similar cost trend. My expectation is that by 2030 solar and batteries will be cheaper than the cost of maintaining the grid. We will still use the grid for baseload and backup, as well as to exchange energy with neighbors. Solar plus batteries will be a major piece of power infrastructure in the world in a decade or so.
What aspects of your experience at RC influenced where you are now?
Being around people most of whom were much smarter and more competitive than me, I learned pretty fast not to compete on terms that others defined for me, but to create my own unique lane and follow my own path. That usually meant listening to my heart as much as my mind. I invite the RC community to have a look at the content on SolarAcademy.com. If you cannot find answers to your questions, reach out to us at team@solaracademy.com.
Published August 2021
