San Francisco is now the largest city in US to legislate all new buildings of 10 storeys or under to install rooftop solar panels. It is not surprising that San Francisco, US’s leading cleantech hub and head area of start-ups and entrepreneurs, makes this resolution for the environment.
I believe that this is a great step toward a stronger environmental situation in the US and hopefully, if successful, will lead to further legislation in the favour of green energy. Scott Wiener, who introduced the legislation in San Francisco, said in the article; “This legislation will activate our roofs, which are an under-utilised urban resource, to make our city more sustainable and our air cleaner”. Hopefully, the technology of solar panels and perhaps also the strength of the legislation will diffuse into regionally near cities and also across the sea to other continents with a great amount of sunlight.
From an entrepreneurial perspective, this new law is interesting since Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, also was the co-funder and still is the largest shareholder of SolarCity, one of US largest provider of solar power systems. They claim to decrease the electricity cost for the users even though there is an investment cost to get it installed. This new legislation will increase the number of solar panels installed which eventually will lead to economies of scale and the cost of the product will drop further. The solar industry will grow and Elon Musk will be seen as even more successful. It’s all about timing when it comes to be an entrepreneur.
You can read the article about the legislation here: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/apr/21/san-francisco-adopts-law-requiring-solar-panels-on-all-new-buildings
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