Profile by daniel petti

Catching

By Daniel Petti

Waves

A Profile of Aditya Agarwal

J

ust off Highway 280, high in the parched hills of Silicon Valley, Aditya Agarwal carefully parks his Nissan Leaf at the end of a dirt road. We are deep in the scrubland: dry grasses wave in the wind, and turquoise lichen ripples from the branches of stunted trees. We hike up a small hill to a clearing occupied by a decrepit tennis court, where a set of hastily erected metal frames are drilled into the faded green tarmac. Behind us is a landscape of blue sky and rolling hills dotted here and there with enormous houses. In front of us are rows upon rows of solar panels.

Aditya yanks off a met-

al panel at the end of one row, exposing a tangle of circuit breakers and wiring. He points out the girth of the wires leading to the house, each one with the capacity to carry 100 amps.

He explains that even if I were to turn on everything in my house, I probably would still not be using that much current. We’re looking at a 17-kilowatt residential solar array, possibly the biggest in the county, and the owner has hired Aditya’s business, HelioFarm, to increase that capacity by a third. What sets HelioFarm apart from the host of more well-known residential solar providers is its size. "In my case, I’m involved in pretty much everything, from

the beginning to end, from the time the customer first contacts me, to our first meeting, drawing up the plans, going to the building department," Aditya tells me. "When it comes time for the installation, I’m on the roof, I’m doing the installation along with my helpers" (Agarwal). Over the course of 2 years, HelioFarm has installed cutting-edge solar systems on homes and businesses all over Silicon Valley.

When I visit Aditya at his house, I have to weave around two partially-restored MG Midgets and a campervan to reach the courtyard of his tasteful Eichler. Inside, he offers me homemade focaccia with olive

oil. Later, from up on his roof, I quickly notice the chicken coop, which is the most prominent feature in his backyard.

He shows me around his own personal solar array, which he has built from large quantities of accumulated surplus equipment from previous installations. Most people would be a little nervous walking around on a slanted surface with no railing, 14 feet in the air, but he seems perfectly comfortable with it. The only suggestion he politely offers is to not walk backwards. I think that Aditya follows his own advice more than he realizes. In a valley that celebrates unique ideas and personal eccentricities, he chooses to go firmly against the grain, at once conforming to and mocking the culture in which he is immersed. I think that cured he is garden adorned with modern art, and a Tesla SuperCharger in the garage. Aditya rings the doorbell, but nobody is home.

In the time I’ve talked to him, I can’t tell whether or not he is truly bothered by the inequity of who can afford his services.

Instead, he prefers to tell funny stories about his interactions with his customers, repeating over and over again that they live in a different world. As someone who fancies himself mainly as a blue collar worker, Aditya is a nice break from the rampant go-getter careerism of the Valley. Even so, it is not as if he hasn’t made any sacrifices to achieve this way of life; he

seemingly always on the roof, and a few mere misteps backward, a couple seconds of not looking ahead, not imagining the future, could send him tumbling haphazardly back to earth.

Due to his location, and the nature of the service he sells, Aditya frequently deals with the local "1%". Despite government measures and the steady Moore’s-Law-esque advance of photovoltaic technology, residential solar remains mainly a luxury item, making Aditya the 21st century equivalent of a Jaguar dealer.

The tennis-courtturned-solarconfarm we fesses are that he has occasionally worried about providing for his family. In the meantime, though, he continues to pay the bills by enabling the software tycoons and startup moguls of Silicon Valley to charge their Teslas and heat their swimming pools guilt-free.

Once, though, he does choose to relate his favorite quote from George Carlin: "The rich people do no work and pay no taxes, the middle class does all the work and pays all the taxes, and the poor people are just there to give the middle class an incentive to keep working" (Agarwal).

Running a business is

standing in is located on a one-acre property in the hills surrounding Palo Alto. Looking up the hillside, I ask him if the house that is visible is where his customer lives. He replies that this is the "tea house". The main house is farther up, a sprawling maze of modern architecture complete with not a carefully e a sy maniwork, but Aditya has always found himself drawn to the challenge.

"So in high school, I had a hot dog truck, and in my junior year, I used to go out and after school, I’d roll out my pushcart and I’d sell hot dogs," he once recounted. "Later on, in my first year of college, I bought a taxi in New York City, and I used to drive a taxi. So, I was always comfortable with being in a small business" (Agarwal).

Though trained as a materials

scientist, Aditya quickly found he did not fit in well with the standard, Silicon Valley lifestyle. Along with three others, he

founded a start-up and worked there for a few years, becoming progressively more frustrated.

During this time, he started volunteering with an organization called Grid Alternatives, leading teams that would go out and install solar systems on the houses of low-income families, and found that he really enjoyed it. Consequently, after the start-up went under, and he was looking for what to do next, installing solar seemed like a "good opportunity, and just a fun thing to do" (Agarwal). Over the years, he has gradually built a small but significant customer base as word of his successful installations has moved through social circles. He has retrofitted buildings ranging from a nightclub in downtown Mountain View to the house of the chairwoman of Mozilla.

I remember when he first

got his Nissan Leaf. The Leaf was one of the first consumer electric cars to hit the market, before Tesla, before Elon Musk, before the Chevy Volt or the plug-in Prius, and Aditya was one of the first to buy one. Consequently, owning a car without a gas cap was understandably exciting for him. Accompanying him to and from jobs in the Leaf was like riding in a spaceship.

All the controls were on screens and LCD indicators that flared to life when he turned it on. The ride was uncannily quiet; the only sound besides the hum of the tires on the pavement was that subtle, high-pitched whine of powerful electric motors. As he deftly maneuvered around suburbia, you could tell that, for him, this was the equivalent of driving a Porsche.

One of the cool things about electric motors is that,

“So, I think, at some point, if government support was shifted to solar in the same way, then solar would have a better chance.”

unlike a gasoline engine, they deliver nearly full torque at any RPM, even from a dead stop.

You might see your standard V8 advertised as providing 400 horsepower, but, in reality, it’s really only providing all that power when it’s running at a very specific speed. An electric car, by contrast, might be able to keep up with only a fraction of those herculean mustangs, but nearly all of that power will be available to you the moment you touch the accelerator, leading to nearly whiplash-inducing accelerations (Understanding D.C. Motor). All this means that people who own electric cars face the challenge of finding legal ways to enjoy this feature. Consequently, driving with Aditya can be very interesting.

"Watch this," he says, stomping on the accelerator and throwing us forward.

An hour before, he had gotten mad at a the driver of a Range Rover for blasting past us on the straightaway.

My complimentary demonstration is over almost as soon as we’ve begun. I tumble out of the car a little dazed, but still fascinated, convinced that I have just experienced the mode of transportation of the future. Aditya seems unfazed, though. I suppose that having a very forward-thinking mindset is a prerequisite for working in the solar industry.

In Aditya’s mind, expansion is always a possibility, but he seems to be much happier

tightening bolts rather than worrying about stock prices.

He’s an entrepreneur, but one who wishes to remain in the thick of things, instead of being relegated to an abstract managerial position. Regardless of what happens with his business, though, solar remains only a small percentage of the U.S.’s total grid capacity, and if he wants to make a difference, that will have to change. "Maybe the answer is that the technologies, or the sources of energy that solar is competing with, those have been supported for a long time, and they continue to be supported. Solar doesn’t

just stand on its own; it has to compete with something else that’s getting a subsidy," Aditya explains. "So, I think, at some point, if government support was shifted to solar in the same way, then solar would have a better chance" (Agarwal).

Overall, Aditya is optimistic about the future but remains guarded in his predictions. "There’s a lot more solar there now than there ever was before, but, that said, you can still drive down any typical block and you’ll only see one or two solar systems, so there’s a long way to go" (Agarwal).