“Solar and batteries go together like peanut butter and jelly,” said entrepreneur, Elon Musk, in a company call last week. The comment came after one of Musk’s companies, energy service provider SolarCity, accepted $2.6bn in stock for one of Musk’s other companies, electric vehicle (EV) manufacturer Tesla Motors. Musk owns around a 20% stake in each company, but dismissed accusations of corporate over-reach and a conflict of interest – choosing instead to focus on his vision of buildings everywhere fitted with solar panels and energy storage, which can power the building as well as charging an EV. Musk is placing himself at the center of our post-carbon solar-powered future. ‘Tesla Motors’ was recently renamed ‘Tesla’ suggesting the focus was no longer just vehicles, giving extra weight to the ‘Powerwall,’ a stationary battery system the company began producing last year. After the SolarCity announcement, Musk said he is building the world’s “first vertically integrated sustainable energy […]