Solar Panels Startup Sells Panels ‘In The Cloud’

Solar panels enthusiast Michael Sun (yes, it is his real name) has been eager to use green energy for a long, long time, going as far as studying solar cell efficiency in Boston University as a doctoral student for the last five years. However, he rents a flat, which makes installing solar panels rather problematic.

That is the reason why he and other renewable energy enthusiasts created CloudSolar – a startup offering its clients panels to be installed not in their houses, but in a “solar farm” the company is going to open somewhere in New England next year.

According to the Boston Globe, this arrangement bears striking similarities to cloud systems used in computing.

“Buyers won’t be able to power their own electronics with the energy their panels generate. Instead, CloudSolar will sell the electricity to utility companies that will pass the green energy on to their customers. Then CloudSolar will send quarterly checks from the proceeds to panel owners.”

CloudSolar creators believe that a lot more people would get around to using panels if there is a way around their flaws: they are inconvenient, inefficient in places that don’t get a lot of sunlight, expensive, and just plain ugly. Thus, instead of preaching green energy, they work on creating a system that would allow a great number of individual people make their little investments into this source of energy, making a huge difference as a result.

Interest in solar energy has been on the rise for quite some time. Despite being developed a long time ago, this way of producing electricity hasn’t seen much use because fossil fuels are still much more efficient. Although doomsayers predict that they will run out any minute now, humankind doesn’t seem to be in immediate danger of it happening anytime soon.

Some individuals, like Michael Sun, and some countries, however, are making the first step in using it on an industrial scale. The Inquisitr reported recently that Peru is giving free panels to two million of their poorest residents as a way to avert an energy crisis.

“At the time, only 66 percent of Peru’s 24 million people had access to electricity as stated by the country’s Energy and Mining Minister, Jorge Merino. Jorge also said the plan is to provide up to 95 percent of their population with electricity.”

These are small steps, but those who make them ensure that solar panels and other sources of renewable energy will be common enough when the real energy crisis does strike.