Time to Think Small by Todd Myers

Author:Todd Myers [Myers, Todd]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Charlesbridge
Published: 2022-11-02T00:00:00+00:00

THE BARRIERS TO ORGANICALLY EMERGING SOLUTIONS

Radically reducing the transaction costs of collaboration provides the opportunity to coordinate efforts as never before. Taking advantage of that opportunity will require a change in mindset. Calestous Juma, the great scholar of technology and sustainability, wrote in his book Innovation and Its Enemies that “technology, the economy, and the associated institutions coevolve as integrated systems. Change in technology often requires complimentary changes in social institutions.”[196] If social and government institutions don’t change as technology improves, societies won’t effectively harness the power the new technologies offer. During the past fifteen years technology has changed rapidly around the world. Some of the most innovative uses of technology are occurring in developing countries, like Ghana, where institutions are weak and allow transition to a new approach with fewer regulatory barriers. As technology costs decline, these alternatives begin to emerge organically.

In countries like the United States, where institutions and a mindset geared to regulatory oversight are strongly entrenched, these organically emerging approaches are too often weeded out before they can flower. These technologies and customer models are still new, and finding the right approach within the existing regulatory system is difficult. An early attempt at creating microgrids is an example of the challenges.

A company called Yeloha that connected people to make voluntary purchases of solar power was named one of Fast Company’s “World Changing Ideas of 2015.”[197] By May 2016, they were out of business. They were simply too far ahead of their time and the barriers were too high. The technology—allowing people to invest in solar panels on someone else’s house—was not difficult. The regulatory environment was. Founder Amit Rosner told me, “We tried to change fundamentally how things are done. And when you try to make change in a highly regulated market, it is not impossible, but to succeed it requires a lot of time and in some cases a lot of funding. You need to withstand a lot of resistance and change how people think.”

Founded in 2015, the company connected people who wanted to buy solar power with people who have available roof space but may not have the funds to install solar panels. For those living in cloudy Washington State (like me), putting solar panels on the roof doesn’t make much sense. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter if the panels are on my roof or someone else’s any more than it matters whether the electricity I use comes from a natural gas generator in my backyard or one in a neighboring state. By allowing me to pay for solar panels somewhere else, where they can be more efficient, it reduces the price of the electricity, while still adding to the total renewable energy on the grid.

Smartphones were a key piece of making this system work. The Yeloha app allowed buyers to see how much energy their solar panels were generating at any moment and encouraged them to share accomplishments with friends. As far as the technology goes, none of this is particularly complicated. The breakthrough was the scale.

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