Seeing the bigger picture. I was pretty upset at Suniva last week. I’ve spent my days and nights looking at the filings, speaking to experts and trying to understand the various issues. When it came down to it, Suniva didn’t have a choice. Either they shut the door and walked away or took the chapter 11 money. From a fiduciary standpoint, I don’t think employees had a choice. SQN was the available lender and their caveat was filing the 201 petition. I am certain that given the choice, Suniva would have chosen an alternative path. As I continue my work, I need to hear from you and your ideas. We have to look at every opportunity to stop the petition to help our industry. This is an issue to affects us all, do not ignore this. At the very least look at your projects and change your module assumption to a $0.78/watt price and tell me what it does for you.
Tax Free Florida. Voters in Florida overwhelmingly voted to pass a tax exemption for commercial solar, fixing a mistake from a constitutional amendment voted on 10 years ago. The bill isn’t perfect, hasn’t left the legislature and it isn’t signed by the Governor but it looks promising. Baby steps, one foot in front of another, or whatever metaphor you like.
Are you offering storage for your solar projects in California? I want to hear from you. In the near future, I will be doing a learning tour and meeting with contractors and developers throughout California working in and around energy storage.
Utilities versus IPPs. There is a circuit including talking points in the wholesale markets. IPPs have been speaking at energy conferences and they are not happy with the zero emission credits given to nuclear power plant operators. Specifically Dynegy believes that the ZECs given to Exelon in Illinois is a bailout that will cause the markets to stop functioning because it absorbs the valuable capacity value. It’s happened at two conferences that I read about, we shall see if it happens again.
Make sure you listen to the latest episodes of EnergyWakeup. Hear from solar entrepreneur, John Gurski, the founder of Energy Toolbase, a cloud based energy bill analytics and proposal tool. I also speak with Tony Clifford from Standard Solar about being acquired by Gaz Metro and his work at SEIA.
- Reuters: REC Silicon sees hope for resolving China solar dispute under Trump
- Miami Herald: Lawmakers poised to carry out solar amendment
- Utility Dive: The carbon consensus – Generators, analysts back CO2 price at FERC technical conference
- Renew Economy: AEMO chief says clinging to old energy business models is “insane”
- Greentech Media: On Top of Everything Else, Tesla Faces a Rough Solar Market This Year
- Bloomberg: Sunrun Falls on Report of SEC Probe Into Solar Cancellations
- PV-Magazine: Utilities try new tactics to discourage solar, but still aren’t getting what they want
- The Verge: Google’s home solar panel estimates launch in Germany
Opinion
Have a great day!
Yann