Poll: What’s The Most Disruptive Cleantech Model?

September 22nd, 2013 by Zachary Shahan

I recently had a fun idea for a poll. Hope you will think so, too. Cleantech as a whole is beginning to disrupt (in a good way) a handful of not-so-clean industries. This includes the coal industry, the nuclear industry, the oil industry, the gasmobile industry, and even the banking industry. In a very broad sense, the question is, which of the below do you consider to be the most disruptive cleantech model?

A) 3rd-party solar (e.g., solar leasing)
B) Feed-in Tariffs (FiTs)
C) Crowdfunding solar and wind projects
D) Model S + X + E (yep, this is a creative use of the term “cleantech model”)

Here’s the poll for voting:

Image Credit: disruptive technology signs via Shutterstock

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Tags: Disruptive Technologies, Tesla, Tesla Model E, Tesla Model S, Tesla Model X

About the Author

Zachary Shahan spends most of his time here on CleanTechnica as the director/chief editor. Otherwise, he's probably enthusiastically fulfilling his duties as the director/editor of Solar Love, EV Obsession, Planetsave, or Bikocity. Zach is recognized globally as a solar energy, electric car, and wind energy expert. If you would like him to speak at a related conference or event, connect with him via social media. You can connect with Zach on any popular social networking site you like. Links to all of his main social media profiles are on ZacharyShahan.com.

http://zacharyshahan.com/ Zachary Shahan

Thanks for the great comments. I plan to incorporate much of this in the follow-up article.
Omega Centauri

I voted 3rd party. Not because I particularly like it, I much prefer crowdfunding and community owned. But, based upon the current scale, 3rd party is making a big difference.
Shiggity

FiT isn’t a business model, it’s a government policy. As far as the biggest impact so far, FiT schemes allowed crowd funding and 3rd party solar leasing.

In terms of disruption, Tesla is the biggest. They put the car industry on it’s head in under a year.
lakis

For me game changer will be efficient metal air batteries (used as a range extender in BEVs) that will remove range anxiety completely.
Bob_Wallace

What has been the most disruptive from your list?

FiTs. They helped bring the price of installed solar down in Spain and Germany very rapidly.

What could be the most disruptive ‘things’ going forward?

A price on carbon. Drive up the price of old coal and natural gas and renewable installation rates will accelerate.

Higher capacity EV batteries. Longer range with the same amount of materials. ICEVs would be niche sales within ten years.
SecularAnimist

Whatever it takes to get ultra-cheap, ultra-efficient, mass-market photovoltaics and battery storage, and a massively distributed, decentralized ultra-smart Intergrid, deployed as widely and rapidly as possible.
JamesWimberley

Do you prefer fish to bicycles?
I´m not voting because the poll is silly. FITs are a policy mechanism; crowdfunding and 3d-party solar are project-level financial mechanisms; Tesla cars are a consumer product; none of them are exclusive. Besides ¨disruptive¨ is no more than a vague business slogan.
Jouni Valkonen

I voted ‘Battery stored solar’ as other alternative.
Ivor O’Connor

You need many more categories and we would need to be able to vote on several of the categories. And we need checkboxes rather than buttons.