Worenn Buffett stops Ilon Mask from doing solar energy

Bloomber Business writes about the undercover fight between the two billionaires who now share the energy market of only one US state - Nevada, but in the future, probably, the unspoken rivalry of the two giants may reach a new level. All this is illustrated by a picturesque gif-image, and the whole essence of the story boils down to the fact that Warren Buffett, who occupies the third place in the list of the richest people in the world, uses his political influence to limit or even make the high-tech business of SolarCity, behind which is the figure of Ilona Mask.

Actually the beginning of the whole story was laid back in 2004, when the cousin of Ilon Mask Lyndon Rive (Lyndon Rive) was looking for a business idea that he could do. During a family trip to the Burning Man festival in Nevada, a conversation took place between Rive and Musk, during which Ilon advised his brother to engage in solar energy, since it should have a serious impact on humanity. The idea turned out to be exciting: in 2006, SolarCity was founded, which was led by the siblings Lindon and Peter Rive, and their famous cousin took over the role of chairman .

The new company really did well, and in 2012 she began to look for ways to expand. At this time, the Governor of Nevada, Brian Sandoval (Brian Sandoval) was actively involved in attracting investment in his staff and offered commercial companies cash grants for organizing production in Nevada. The person Elon Musk played a role, and as a result, relevant agreements were concluded between SolarCity and Nevada. The construction of a factory for the production of solar batteries was started, and the company very quickly took a leading position in this business, while planning to expand to Arizona and Oregon, despite the fact that everything had already been established in California for a long time.


^{Lyndon and Peter Rive. Photo David Paul Morris / Bloomberg}

Two months before trust was established between SolarCity and the Nevada authorities, the well-known billionaire and investor Warren Buffett acquired for $ 5.6 billionstate energy company NV Energy. In addition, Berkshire Hathaway's Buffett interests extended to several other states in which he invested in wind and solar power - in other words, this business was not accidental for him. Just at that time, SolarCity started its operations. The company installed solar panels on the roofs of houses, giving them the opportunity to pay for them for 20 years and giving owners the opportunity to earn money on the flow of generated electricity while they do not need it in the house. Despite a number of doubting reviews in the press, the company managed to get an annual income of at least $ 350 million.

However, it ended pretty quickly. NV Energy, some time after Warren Buffett became its owner, announced the new rules of work. According to the document, the total capacity of electricity produced by households with solar panels cannot exceed 3% of the rest of the state’s power system. The authors of the amendments were two lobbyists by the name of Pete Ernaut and Greg Ferraro, longtime friends of State Governor Brian Sendoval, who had warmly welcomed SolarCity and promised her a comfortable business environment. This decision led not only to a significant rise in price of the transition of any private home to solar panels, but also made the use of existing ones economically unprofitable.

This caused a natural protest. In early January, representatives of SolarCity and its rival Sunrun publicly expressed their displeasure with the Nevada authorities, as 18,000 customers of the company received a real headache in the form of solar panels installed on their homes, for which you would have to pay $ 11,000 for the entire 20-year lease. Installing new batteries under the current restriction turned out to be so expensive that it was impossible to count on anyone's voluntary desire to do so. It came to the point that one of the owners of solar-powered houses promised to sue $ 1 billion in state power, and the famous Hollywood actor Mark Ruffalo took part in the public meeting. Negotiations with the Governor of Sandowal to increase the quota from 3% to at least 10% were unsuccessful.


^{Photo by Steve Marcus / Las Vegas Sun}

Last December, residents of the provincial town of Woodland, North Carolina, were outraged by the damage that solar energy could cause to nature. In particular, it has been argued that solar panels can suck out all the energy of the sun. As a result, the city council imposed a moratorium on installing solar panels near the city in the future.