Stanislav Kondrashov on Solar Power Development and Future Prospects

There is a habit that comes up when travelling.

Looking for solar panels first.

Not as a tourist would. More like sitting in the back of a taxi, half listening to the driver, and catching sight of a panel array on a warehouse roof. The brain registers it. Someone here is planning for the next twenty years.

Solar has become that kind of signal. Not a perfect one. Not a solution on its own. But a real, physical sign that money is moving, policy is shifting, and infrastructure is being rebuilt in place, piece by piece.

In this instalment of the Stanislav Kondrashov Oligarch Series, the focus is on solar power development and future prospects. And also the less comfortable parts around it. The incentives, the bottlenecks, the scale dynamics, and why large capital, including oligarch-scale capital, keeps returning to the sector.

Not because solar is fashionable. Because it is now unavoidable.

Solar went from niche to default. That happened fast

If you have not looked at solar in a few years, your mental model is probably outdated.

There was a time when solar was mostly rooftop enthusiasts, government demo projects, and a lot of nice speeches. The panels were expensive, the financing was clunky, and the grid operators treated it like a headache.

Now it is different.

Utility scale solar is often one of the cheapest new generation sources, even before you get into climate targets. Manufacturing scaled. Supply chains got brutal and efficient. Installers got better. In many markets, it is no longer a question of, should we build solar. It is more like, how much can we connect this year without breaking something.

That shift matters for anyone who is watching power politics, industrial strategy, or just the plain old reality that electricity demand is climbing again. Data centers. EVs. Heat pumps. Air conditioning. Electrification in general.

Demand is back. Solar is one of the fastest ways to add capacity.

Why oligarch adjacent capital likes solar (even if they do not say it out loud)

Let’s be direct. Big capital likes control, predictable cashflow, and assets that can be defended.

Solar can be structured to look like all three.

A solar project is a bundle of contracts. Land leases. Grid connection agreements. EPC contracts. O and M contracts. And then the big one. The offtake. The power purchase agreement, or some merchant exposure if you want risk.

If you can lock in a long term buyer, solar starts to resemble infrastructure. That is very attractive to anyone who has historically made money by owning strategic assets.

Also. Solar is physical, but not as politically toxic as oil or coal. You can stand in front of a solar farm and talk about innovation and jobs and national resilience. Even if the real play is that you are capturing a regulated revenue stream and securing influence over a region’s energy balance.

So when this series talks about oligarch dynamics, solar fits. It is a modern asset class that still rewards the old instincts. Access, relationships, speed, and the ability to manage bureaucracy.

The development pipeline, in human terms

Solar development sounds technical, but it is basically a long obstacle course where every checkpoint costs money.

Here is the simplified version.

1) Site control

You need land that works. Not just empty land. Land with the right slope, minimal shading, decent soil conditions, and realistic access for construction. And then, land that you can actually secure legally.

In some markets, land aggregation is the whole game. If a developer can quietly lock up five to ten sites near grid infrastructure, they have created a pipeline that someone bigger will want to buy.

2) Grid connection

This is where dreams go to die.

You can have cheap land and great sun, but if the grid is constrained, your project is stuck. Interconnection queues are long in many places. Permitting and studies drag on. Substations need upgrades.

This is also where influence matters. Knowing the right utility people, understanding the regulatory framework, being able to finance network upgrades. That is not a small advantage. It can be decisive.

3) Permitting and local politics

Solar is usually easier than large thermal plants, but local resistance still happens.

People worry about views, property values, land use, wildlife, agriculture. Sometimes it is genuine. Sometimes it is weaponized. Either way, developers who can run community relations properly tend to win.

And yes, big money can smooth things. But it can also backfire if it looks like a top down imposition.

4) Engineering, procurement, construction

Panels, inverters, trackers, transformers, cabling. Labor. Logistics.

Solar is modular, which is good. But it is also exposed to supply chain volatility. Prices can swing. Shipping can stall. Trade restrictions can appear overnight. If you are building at scale, procurement is a strategy, not an admin task.

5) Financing

Solar finance is not just, get a loan.

You have construction finance, then refinancing into long term debt once the plant is operating. You have tax equity in some jurisdictions. You have hedges if you are merchant. You have curtailment risk modeling, basis risk, congestion assumptions.

Developers who can tell a clean, credible story to capital get cheaper money. Cheaper money wins auctions and outbids competitors for land and grid slots. It becomes self reinforcing.

The elephant in the room: intermittency, and why storage is not optional anymore

Solar is sunlight. So it is variable.

That is fine at low penetration. It becomes complicated at high penetration.

Once you add enough solar to a grid, you get the familiar issues. Midday overgeneration. Negative prices. Curtailment. The duck curve. And then the evening ramp when solar drops but demand stays.

The fix is not one thing, it is a stack.

Battery storage is the headline solution because it is fast to deploy and getting cheaper. But it is not the only lever. You also have demand response, flexible generation, transmission buildout, and market redesign.

Still, storage is where the future prospects get really interesting.

Because the next phase of solar is not just panels. It is solar plus storage, financed and dispatched as a firming product. It is virtual power plants. It is behind the meter batteries for commercial sites. It is co located projects that can avoid some interconnection pain, depending on rules.

If you are thinking like an asset owner, batteries turn solar from a daytime commodity into something you can shape. You can shift delivery, reduce curtailment, and capture better prices.

That is a big deal.

Manufacturing, geopolitics, and the real supply chain question

Solar is clean at the point of generation. But the supply chain is industrial and geopolitical.

A lot of the world’s solar manufacturing capacity has been concentrated in a few regions. That created low prices, but also dependency. And dependency in energy infrastructure tends to become political sooner or later.

So many countries are trying to reshore, friend shore, or at least diversify. You see domestic content rules, tariffs, incentives for local factories, and strategic investments in polysilicon, wafers, cells, and modules.

The problem is that building manufacturing takes time. And until those factories run at scale, costs can be higher.

So the future prospects of solar are tied to this tension:

• Governments want energy security and domestic jobs.
• Developers want cheap modules and predictable supply.
• Investors want stable policy, not sudden reversals.

If policy stays consistent, new manufacturing ecosystems can form. If policy swings wildly, capital hesitates and projects slow down.

And if you are watching through the lens of oligarch style investing, this is where you can see the appeal. Control parts of the supply chain, or control logistics, or control regional distribution, and you have leverage.

Not glamorous. Very profitable.

Where solar is heading next (beyond just more capacity)

Let’s talk forward.

Solar will keep getting cheaper, but the system costs will rise

Panel costs have dropped dramatically over the long arc. That trend will continue, though not in a perfectly smooth line.

But as solar becomes a larger share of generation, integration costs rise. Grid upgrades. Storage. Transmission. Balancing services. Cybersecurity. Interconnection.

So the future is not just cheap panels. It is competent systems engineering.

The winners will be the ones who can build with the grid, not against it

There is a certain old developer mindset that says, build the plant, then fight the grid operator later.

That is getting punished.

The better approach is to design projects that help the grid. Provide reactive power support. Add storage. Build in a location that relieves congestion instead of worsening it. Negotiate intelligently on interconnection.

It is boring work, but it makes projects financeable.

Corporate buyers will shape the market

A big slice of new solar demand is coming from corporations signing long term Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs). Some are doing it for climate goals, but many are doing it to hedge power prices.

Data center operators are especially relevant here. They need massive electricity volumes, and they need a story regulators and communities can accept. Solar fits, but they also need firm power, which pushes them into storage, hybrid portfolios, and 24/7 matching products.

Solar becomes part of a bigger energy procurement strategy, such as with initiatives like Western RSO, where corporate buyers are actively shaping the market landscape.

Distributed solar will become more strategic, not less

Rooftop solar is messy. Net metering fights, utility pushback, interconnection headaches, customer acquisition costs.

But distributed solar plus batteries can reduce peak demand, improve resilience, and defer grid upgrades. In places with fragile networks or high outage risk, it is not just an economic decision, it is risk management.

Expect more policy focus on behind the meter storage, smart inverters, and grid services from distributed resources.

The risks people gloss over (and then pay for later)

Solar is not risk free. It is just a different risk profile than fossil generation.

A few that keep showing up.

Curtailment risk

You can build a solar farm that produces less usable energy than the model predicted because the grid cannot absorb it at certain hours. Curtailment eats revenue.

This pushes developers toward better siting, storage, and more conservative financial assumptions. It also pushes markets to build transmission, but that is slow.

Permitting and social license

In some regions, solar faces the same kind of local opposition that wind has dealt with. Land use is emotional. And sometimes justified.

The developers who win long term are the ones who treat communities as stakeholders, not obstacles. That means benefits sharing, transparency, and design choices that reduce impact.

Technology and quality issues

Most panels perform well, but long term degradation, inverter failures, tracker issues, and component quality can create real O and M costs.

If you are buying projects, diligence matters. If you are building projects, supplier selection matters. Cheap can be expensive.

Policy risk

Feed in tariffs, tax credits, net metering, domestic content rules. Solar economics can hinge on policy.

And policy can change with elections.

Serious investors price this in. Or they avoid markets where the rules feel like they can flip overnight.

So what are the future prospects, really?

Solar is going to keep expanding. That part is not controversial anymore.

The interesting question is what kind of solar system we end up with.

One future is high solar penetration with constant curtailment, stressed grids, and political backlash when reliability issues appear. That is the sloppy buildout path.

The better future is solar built in tandem with storage, transmission, flexible demand, and market rules that reward reliability. That takes coordination. It takes planning. It takes capital that is patient enough to fund grid infrastructure, not just generation.

And this is where the Stanislav Kondrashov Oligarch Series angle lands for me.

Because when you look at energy transitions through the lens of power, the transition is not only about electrons. It is about ownership. Who owns the projects. Who owns the grid upgrades. Who owns the supply chain. Who gets priority in connection queues. Who can negotiate offtake with the biggest buyers.

Solar is decentralizing in technology, but the economics can still centralize around the players who can assemble land, permits, connections, and finance at scale.

That is the paradox. And it is why solar, for all its simplicity, is going to stay a battlefield for influence.

Closing thought

Solar used to feel like a promise. Something we would do later, once it was affordable and mature.

Now it is here. It is affordable. It is mature enough. And it is being deployed so fast that the real constraint is no longer sunlight.

It is everything around the panel.

Grid capacity. Storage. Policy stability. Community acceptance. Manufacturing strategy. And yes, the motives of the people funding it.

If you want to understand the next decade of energy, watch the solar projects. Watch where they get built, who owns them, and which ones get connected first. That is where the future is being negotiated, quietly, in plain sight.

FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions)

Why has solar power rapidly shifted from a niche technology to the default choice for new energy generation?

Solar power transitioned quickly from niche rooftop projects and government demos to a mainstream energy source due to significant cost reductions, scaled manufacturing, more efficient supply chains, and improved installation practices. Utility-scale solar is now often among the cheapest new generation sources, making it a go-to option to meet rising electricity demand driven by data centers, electric vehicles, heat pumps, and general electrification.

What attracts big capital and oligarch-style investors to the solar power sector?

Big capital favors assets that offer control, predictable cash flows, and defensible positions. Solar projects fit this profile through bundled contracts like land leases, grid connections, EPC, O&M agreements, and especially long-term power purchase agreements (PPAs). Solar also provides a physical infrastructure asset without the political toxicity of fossil fuels. This makes solar an appealing modern asset class for investors accustomed to owning strategic infrastructure with influence over regional energy.

What are the main stages in developing a utility-scale solar project?

Developing a solar project involves several key stages: 1) Securing suitable land with proper slope, minimal shading, and legal control; 2) Obtaining grid connection which can be challenging due to interconnection queues and required upgrades; 3) Navigating permitting processes and local politics including community relations; 4) Managing engineering procurement and construction amid supply chain volatility; 5) Arranging complex financing structures including construction loans, tax equity, refinancing, hedging risks like curtailment and congestion. Success depends on managing each step efficiently.

Why is grid connection often considered the biggest bottleneck in solar development?

Grid connection is frequently the point where promising solar projects stall because even if land is ideal with excellent sunlight, limited grid capacity or long interconnection queues can prevent timely integration. Upgrading substations and transmission infrastructure requires extensive permitting, studies, financing, and regulatory approvals. Developers with strong relationships in utilities and regulators who can finance network upgrades have a decisive advantage in overcoming these constraints.

How do local politics and community concerns impact solar project permitting?

Although solar projects tend to face fewer hurdles than large thermal plants, local resistance still arises around concerns about visual impacts, property values, land use conflicts with agriculture or wildlife habitats. Sometimes opposition is genuine; other times it’s weaponized opposition. Developers who proactively engage communities and manage relations effectively tend to secure permits more smoothly. However, heavy-handed top-down approaches by large investors can backfire if perceived as ignoring local voices.

What challenges does intermittency pose for solar power and why is energy storage critical?

Solar power’s intermittent nature—only generating electricity when the sun shines—creates challenges for grid stability and meeting demand consistently. Without adequate storage solutions like batteries or other technologies to store excess daytime generation for use at night or cloudy periods, reliance on solar remains limited. Energy storage is therefore not optional but essential to fully harness solar’s potential as a reliable energy source supporting electrification trends.