Energy Companies Could Find Elon Musk Breathing Down Their Neck

Tesla Motors has announced plans to invest as much as $5 billion in the world’s largest battery factory, which it expects to cut the cost of an improved lithium-ion battery by 30 percent, not only lowering the price of its cars but speeding a transition to decentralized power. Storage is a major obstacle to the widespread adoption of intermittent energy sources like solar and wind, and Elon Musk, CEO and founder of Tesla, is also the largest shareholder in a solar power company, run by Lyndon Rive, his cousin. According to Rive, California utilities are taking months to connect residential solar panels to the grid because they don’t want the system to change from “the existing game, the sole source, cost-plus model,” a game which is characterized by some as a $360 billion monopoly.