I'm a bit late to the discussion, but I'm glad to see so many comments here in response to one of the Utility API founders.<p>Just wanted to note something very important:<p>As a co-founder of a very new cleantech software startup, and as a guy coming into the energy industry initially with only a background in software, you need to understand that the energy industry (especially in the US) is incredibly diverse and is really an ecosystem in itself.<p>The market is not just regulated utilities and their customers. There are unregulated markets, power generators, ISOs, cleantech vendors, project developers, installers, financiers, insurance companies, and plenty more players in the space. Each of these actors serves a different role in the process of getting a solar array or battery up and running on a building or out in the field.<p>And to echo some other comments, the hardware is pretty much all there by now, with prices getting lower by the month, and the only thing that's missing is the right software to help scale deployment of capital, energy assets, installation labor, etc.<p>[Impending plug is coming]<p>In fact, this is exactly what my company, Station A (<a href="https://stationa.com" rel="nofollow">https://stationa.com</a>), is doing. We've realized that in the commercial and industrial sectors, renewables are seeing slower penetration because the high soft costs associated with project development for the medium-to-small energy consumers. This stems primarily from a lack of access to critical data, biased sales tactics (solar developers only want to sell you solar, even if it won't make a difference), and the inability for project developers to really find the right locations to develop with the right technology in a scalable fashion.<p>This sector is ripe for disruption purely with software, as the hardware has become so much more commoditized.