This week’s podcast is all about the difficulties in making hardware.
Dreaming, designing, building and deploying new kinds of hardware is tough in any business. But in the energy business, where change comes particularly slowly, developing new tech is an especially hellacious undertaking. All of our segments tie into this theme.
We’ll start off by talking with Emily Reichert, the CEO of Greentown Labs, a hardware-specific cleantech incubator. We’ll talk about where entrepreneurs tackling this space are finding the financial and human capital to get them to scale.
Then we’ll turn to the ongoing saga of SolarCity. The company made a big bet on solar manufacturing last year -- and new developments suggest that the decision to make its own solar panels was the wrong one.
Finally, the solar industry in general is undergoing a lot of turmoil -- particularly in manufacturing. We’ll broaden the discussion to talk about why solar producers are struggling, and why the solar industry may be facing a bloodbath in 2017.
This podcast is sponsored by Mission Solar Energy, a producer of American-made solar cells and modules.