As I walk to my bus stop I feel as if the skyline is creeping higher every day. Trees disappear and new developments grow where their roots used to be. Rumbling yellow earth movers make room for large wooden poles on the nature strips. Wire after wire is strung up and connected to the new apartments.
Anyone who's built a house understands the countless regulations one must adhere to. In some council areas, this may include what colours are allowed for your roof or what types of plants you can grow. In more recent times these regulations have begun to include measures that will keep us safer, such as pool fences, and things that will reduce our impact on the earth, such as water tanks.
As new discoveries are made about how we can better live, regulations will continue to change. Just because something is the norm now doesn't mean it will be in a decade. Recently the discussion around regulation has moved to power, and how we will source it in our homes.
Earlier this month Tesla in Australia launched the Powerwall 2. In the transition to renewable energy, it may be the biggest disruption to hit traditional energy companies yet. In fact, it's probably their worst nightmare.
For a long time, politicians and big energy companies could put solar power down as an inefficient form of energy, because there wasn't a way it could be produced on mass scale. Tesla has engineered a battery able to store enough charge to power a two-bedroom home for an entire day, meaning people will be able to either sell excess back onto the grid or leave the traditional grid system all together.
When you think about all the time in the day we aren't using electricity, it's easy to imagine the potential of the energy this small device can hold. You and I install solar systems alongside one of these batteries and never need to worry about another Energy Australia bill.
Our role in energy under this innovation has changed from us being consumers to possibly all being providers. Just as Uber disrupted taxis and Airbnb disrupted traditional hotel chains, so too will the Tesla battery change our relationships and transactions with energy.
Solar has had some bad PR in recent times. Surges in power use, such as those that caused the Adelaide blackouts, are predictable in extreme weather. If the electricity grid is like a maypole, you