Israeli entrepreneur Amit Rosner lives in Tel Aviv and is launching a business in Boston. He spends a lot of time on airplanes. “And whenever I look out of the window before we land, it drives me nuts to see roofs baking in the sun,” Rosner says. “I feel this is absurd–that so much energy falls on the roofs, and it just bakes the roofs without doing anything helpful.”

He’s right; it’s crazy. Consider: The price of photovoltaic cells is plummeting; an overwhelming majority of Americans (79 percent, according to a recent Gallup poll) want the U.S. to develop more solar power; and solar power is in fact growing, accounting for 36 percent of all new electric capacity through the first nine months of 2014, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association. And yet, solar power remains all but invisible on the big stage of U.S. electricity generation.