Roisoleil

As many Europeans, I've been struck by the current heatwave and drought. I live in the south of France, we are used to hot weather. The new thing is that those events now start to have a visible economical impact, sometimes at a massive scale. When rivers are hot, nuclear plants cannot be cooled down correctly. French government had to authorize hot water releases, that allow this cooling but also creates a vicious circle and has consequences for living organisms.

We could fall into despair and think there is no hope until world governments take more action. As a web developer, I feel particularly useless: what's the point of marketing websites and jamstack patterns when the world is falling apart?

But that's not how an entrepreneur should think. An entrepreneur, an engineer, takes problems and solves them. That's not just a job, but a pledge.

So I started looking around for things I can improve right now. And I didn't have to dig too far!

My house has a separate garage. The sun makes it very hot inside, to the point that you can hardly stay in it more than 10 minutes to inflate the car tires. From the house, I can see the top of this garage. A beautiful tiled garage with a slanted roof. But it misses something.

Why aren't there solar panels on this roof?

They are supposed to be profitable investments, small enough to be available for individuals, and I am actually looking for one. When well chosen (made locally, with limited use of rare materials), they are good for the environment. They do produce their maximum when nuclear plants produce the least, so they are also good for the economy and France energetic sovereignty.

For real, why aren't there solar panels on this roof?!

First, because I am not the owner and like many young people, I am not sure I'll be able to stay there for 20 years to enjoy all the profits from the installation. Then because it means taking 100% of the risk, in sunny regions hail is particularly vicious. It already destroyed a brand new solar plant in France.
The problem is that your are "locked to your roof". Currently, you cannot invest in solar panels on roofs that are not your own. It makes it a bad investment: risky with no possibility to diversify, and doesn't scale up.

What can I do with my current skills to solve this issue, and finally have a solar panel on top of my roof? Connect people, of course! That's after all what a web developer do.

The next step of Roisoleil project will be:

• keep getting more knowledgeable about solar panels and investments in this field (existing solutions, competition)
• investigate the technical aspects, on the example on my home roof: how much power can it generates, what does it means in terms of finances when reselling the energy
• start talking with people in the field, and start manually connecting people (concierge MVP of a marketplace) with roofs to people with money or skills: investors, installers.