[firemanx]

I think there are many more players than you hear about, in this space. The company I work for builds distributed, large-scale energy storage (I work on the management and monitoring system that controls the "distributed" part), though we're relatively unknown right now. There are several other companies that we're aware of, all shipping products today and beginning to carve out parts of the market with relatively little fanfare. I chalk it up to their / our technology not being as "sexy" as something like LightSail, but nevertheless many are beginning to deliver results right now.

Hopefully I don't sound like I'm disparaging LightSail or any of the other possible avenues - I think we need continued investment in new methods as we should always be pursuing improvement, and the LightSail approach sounds very promising. I hope Thiel and Gates' involvement in this industry will bring even more visibility to it. However, I do want to make the point that there are people doing this today, in consumer and commercial applications, and having real effects.

[DaniFong]

Good luck with your company! Management of the systems is a seriously underappreciated and difficult problem, especially with batteries. To do it well, you have to really know the chemistry.

I think the difference in fanfare is probably because, unless you change the levelized cost of stored energy to be less than the cost of producing power from fossil fuels in the first place, you can have a significant effect, but you can't really change the way the mainstream grid operates. Existing technologies can't do that.

The companies that have staked their reputation on trying to climb that mountain are those which have attracted the likes of Vinod Khosla, Peter Thiel, Bill Gates -- who are not in it to make a buck or megabuck, but to change the world.

Management and monitoring is an important part of changing the world, but whether or not it happens depends on the cost of the system. The suspense, then, and pressure, is on us. But all players stand to play an important part -- and make a fortune.

[firemanx]

Thanks for the reply, Danielle.

We are indeed a battery-based system for now, though we aren't necessarily tied to that technology long term. We've focused on building a strength is in flexibility and ability to distribute storage wherever its needed. It's always exciting to see new methods of storage being developed, as I agree with you about the economics of storage. I'm not quite convinced that batteries are an antiquated option just yet (or aren't feasible financially or environmentally, long term, especially as R&D continues to move there as well), but I'm just a lowly software engineer - I'll leave it for the rest of our team to worry about those problems :)

Congratulations on your successes thus far, and good luck for what the future holds!

[pyoung]

I think the lack of visibility in this industry has more to do with who the target customers are. Storage/Energy tech is primarily sold to governments, utilities, or large industrial customers. If you are a consumer app, getting a lot of press can make or break your company. Not so much with energy companies.

[firemanx]

That's an excellent point, though it's always interesting to me just how much many energy companies try to market to consumers, despite the optimal markets :)