Although oil prices have been plummeting recently, the future of energy is likely still from renewable sources such as solar power, if only because they make generating electricity insanely cheap. With this in mind, Bloomberg’s Mark Chediak writes that Elon Musk’s new gigafactory should scare electric companies to death because of it will have the ability to mass produce “stationary battery packs that can be paired with rooftop solar panels to store power.”
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Amory Lovins, the co-founder of energy consultancy firm Rocky Mountain Institute, tells Chediak that energy storage packs such as the ones Musk and his factory are making pose “a mortal threat” to electric utilities because they are “an unregulated product you can buy at Home Depot that leaves the old business model with no place to hide.”
Of course, we’re still a long way away from the days when we can tear up our monthly electric bills and at this point Musk’s Tesla insists that electric companies are its partners, not its rivals. But it looks like we’re definitely headed in a direction where cheap solar power becomes at least an easy supplement to our electricity consumption and that should be welcome news for anyone who wants to pay less money for power every month.
