Beebe: Solar Scaled Through Brute-Force Supply Chains, Not Novel Tech
Andrew Beebe · AI-fueled geothermal and ‘the edge of the possible’ · Jun 10, 2024 · at 4:57
Andrew Beebe, Managing Director at Obvious Ventures, discusses the historical mechanisms that drove rapid cost deflation across the solar photovoltaic industry.
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“And one of the key catalysts that I hadn't really understood was the ability to use non-semiconductor grade silicon, you know, not the purest type of silicon to make solar cells. So instead of radical innovation, you know people like Nanosolar and even Solyndra and my company, Energy Innovations, trying to do gallium arsenide, high concentration modules instead of these big breakthrough different approach technologies or thin films or perscovites or whatever, it was brute force supply chain scaling and engineering, you know, a learning curve.”
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