Question on Business Model

I am a reasonably successful European entrepreneur (created and grew two companies to substantial levels of leadership) and I happen to have connections in the energy sector in France in particular and a strong personal interest for this area. I could be interested in helping you grow in Europe through my network. I believe your approach make sense to try and store energy generated by unpredictable sources of energies like solar and wind and deliver it back when most needed. However, I must say that I am still strugling with one point after reading most of your materials and the recent Business Week article featuring your company on August 10th. In this article, you are reported saying that "adding storage will yield a higher return on investment" for solar power plants. However, in the US, like in Europe, the price for solar electricity is heavily subsidized (it costs 10 to 20 cents more per Kwh to produce than "traditional" electricity) and these subsidies to my knowledge are not linked to the moment when the energy is delivered to the utilities. How can you expect to make money by adding another significant cost to be amortized on top of the already high cost of building a solar power plant if this extra cost is not taken into account in the purchase agreement with the utilities? You are also alluding to "Day ahead bid process" as a source of revenues. Because of a very high demand some days and at some hours in the day, do you expect prices per Kwh in this model to be high enough to cover the amortization of both the cost to generate solar electricity and the cost to convert that electricty to into hydrogen and the back to electricty?

I am looking forward to hearing from you.

Denis Payre