This is your SolarWakeup for January 5th, 2017

The Association shuffle. January will have plenty of news when it comes to national trade associations but for now the small ones (SEFA) will become part of SEIA. This is in line with what happened to the Solar Alliance a few years back. The trade association game is difficult and mostly about fundraising especially in an industry like ours where policy is defensive and margins are slim.

Optimism be damned. Focus on rhetoric. Brad Plumer is right, the climate activists are trying to find the positive side of the Trump administration. The issue with that approach is that it assumes no political action from the minority side. Energy and climate advocates should focus on three things: more solar, clean air and clean water. Anything else becomes a debate, the only ones against those three things pay off politicians and that’s a fight we can win.

California keeps plugging in. Through the first 10 months of 2016, 128k systems were interconnected in California. Now comes NEM 2.0 and energy storage in the Country’s leading market. There could be a dip coming out of the first quarter as consumers are educated on the new policies. Keep watching the CSI numbers to see if the trajectory trends in a different direction.

Getting into the global markets. As Innogy finishes its acquisition of Belectric, you can expect more of this to happen across the world. Access to retained dealflow across global markets ensures that companies can whether the ups and downs of the individual solar markets.

Opinion

Have a great day!

Yann