JB Straubel,Tesla
Talk around Tesla’s Powerwall hasn’t stopped since Elon Musk’s announcement this spring, making the company’s CTO a smart choice for the Intersolar NA 2015 keynote.
Whether excited or hesitant about the technology, a large crowd of curious conference attendees showed up to hear JB Straubel speak at this year’s opening ceremony. Straubel co-founded the EV maker with Elon Musk and sits on the board of SolarCity with Musk as its chairman.
Straubel introduced Tesla Energy—a manufacturer of trendy electric cars for the general public and the creator of a possible revolutionary energy storage innovation to the solar industry. He discussed how energy storage is critical to widespread adoption of solar energy and will ultimately enable a renewable energy economy.
“It’s not one big invention,” he said. “It’s a hundred little inventions.”
Straubel put an emphasis on reducing battery cost and providing some predictions for the future. He noted that Tesla expects battery costs to decrease much quicker than people expect, just like photovoltaic prices dropped quicker than expected. In turn, Straubel holds lower battery cost will make electric vehicles cheaper than gas powered cars. Grid energy storage use is also expected to increase, with batteries as the dominant technology.
The remainder of the ceremony’s line-up included key solar policymakers and advocates, including Bernadette del Chiaro, the executive director of the California Solar Energy Industries Association (CALSEIA); New York State Sen. Kevin S. Parker, a champion of solar policy in New York; and Professor Dr. Eicke R. Weber, the director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems (ISE) / Germany.
