Why everyone missed solar's exponential growth

Working in an investment bank that's build around 800 solar plants over the world in the previous decade with steep competition from a lot of other investors I'd argue that not everyone missed it. The next big boom is in battery storage, but the projects and investments took off a year or two ago with production factories nearing completion. Part of what shot it up was when various EU countries raised their green energy targets from 60-80%. In Germany alone that will require a 800% growth for battery storage financials before 2030.

I'm not sure which semi-professional to professional investors missed that here in Europe though. In fact we've seen so many companies shoot up around these things that the recent economic downturns is causing quite a lot of bankruptcies. Which are then bought up by larger investment funds.

From a tech perspective... There is going to be a lot of potential in building the technical layer between a plant and the "internet". None of the current systems, including market leaders that I'm not going to name drop, aren't very good. Part of the reason is because things like inverters and other solar plant tech has absolutely no standardization. They are ridiculously different, meaning you need actual programmers to onboard each plant unless someone builds some form of engineering standard. Currently it seems like each piece of tech basically has it's software designed by the individual engineer who made it. What is even more hilarious is that the systems made for solar, wind, batteries and so on don't work together.

> So wrong, in fact, that when I recently offered a $1,000 bet on solar’s explosive growth, not a single expert would take me up on it.

Doesn't that mean the forecasters agreed with this gentleman? He bet $1,000 that he is right and nobody wanted to bet against that.

I'll also say that forecasters, by the nature of their role, basically just project status quo forward for whatever their time horizon is. They generally don't have a good vantage point to spot fundamental market shifts. You have to be brave to bet on an exponential trend holding since when they end they end suddenly.

The next thing is what's happening in batteries. Solar panels are great, but you need storage to go with them. Battery prices dropped about an order of magnitude over 12 years.[1]

Energy density continues to improve. At some point, one of the half-dozen companies trying to get production cost down for solid-state batteries will probably succeed. That gets about 2x the energy density per unit weight over lithium-ion, plus charging times under 10 minutes. Then fast chargers can replace gas pumps on a one for one basis.

Fixed energy storage doesn't need more density, just lower prices. Lithium iron phosphate batteries are just fine for that. Retail chains with huge flat roofs (Walmart, Target, etc.) are going in heavily for solar and batteries.[2] The power bill for air-conditioning those huge spaces quickly justifies it.

This is now entirely driven by the economics. No more need for subsidies.

[1] https://www.statista.com/chart/23807/lithium-ion-battery-pri...

[2] https://electrek.co/2024/11/19/corporate-america-is-investin...

I think forecasters are scared of exponentials. If they project a linear, for the immediate short term they get better wins. The problem is that planning often maps out 5+ years and if you miss the doubling potential in the explosive growth you basically mis-planned.

People want independence from the billing cycle. With the decline in systems reliability overall, having your own solar "feels" like it helps. That absent batteries it may not, and that it also has causative qualities to the systems reliability isn't material. Its what people feel about it.

The fear in the asset holders over being stranded is huge. Down here in Australia unavoidable systems charges are not the majority of most people's bills, as the semi-hemi-private-regulated market operators rush to get profit out of the capex.

If you can afford to go battery+solar, the cost to unbind from the net is also a huge dis-incentive. Better to stay connected, pay service charge, and find an aggregator to arbitrage your load into a value proposition.

The whole "Chyna is stealing our solar lunch" thing is tiresome. If they want to dump solar panels on the world, I say go for it: The more the merrier.

I keep feeling a bit of this is how much less energy modern things need over the past. Obviously, industrial use has gone way up. Basics in a household, though, were trending surprisingly down. Modern lights and general entertainment are thankfully low in energy.

What is needed though is the either storage of energy (batteries) or the redistribution of consumption (robot butlers pushing peak evening consumption forward in the day).

But why? I feel like I just read an overlong answer to "why did the soccer player miss the goal?" that amounts to "the ball went the wrong way."

Without further reduction in battery costs, this exponential growth will turn linear again.

There is also an enormous amount of money tied up in old power, guaranteed profits for companies that run old plants and political games denying climate change and turning the population against renewables.

Nobody wants to predict a future they know will be unpopular and make a lot of people angry.

I.e. when I say you won’t even be able to buy a new ICE vehicle on roughly 10 years people get very confrontational and angry

Anything that grows exponentially is going to suffer comically wrong forecasts if over a long enough time horizon, like 3-5 years. It's almost impossible to get the exponent exactly right, and the error grows very quickly.

log log has been a thing for several decades.