And Then? And Then, and then, and then. On Friday the ITC will decide if there was serious injury to the section 201 petitioners. While we all know that this is largely a ploy to increase the value of the bankrupt assets to the lien holders, the ITC looks at it as a recourse of last resort. I.e. the ITC wants to know how Suniva and SolarWorld will be able to come back to life if they get their remedy. Until now, neither company has offered any insight to how the turn around would occur. No plan on becoming less reliant on single customers by building a dealer network, partnering with financial products, returning to bankability (good luck with that) or how to retain employees that will largely be persona non grata in the solar industry as employees of either company. This should raise serious red flags to the ITC that they are being used by foreign funds to milk the American consumer of hard earned money by making solar more expensive. No and then, just the tariff please is what they appear to be saying.
What Happened To California’s 100% RPS? Early this year, in an interview with Senator Wiener of San Francisco, we talked about SB100. The bill made it almost to the finish line getting stuck in a final committee. Reason for the hold up? A large trade union that maintains a large foothold in the withering fossil sector in California. The sad part is that solar actually has a really good union relationship across the Country. Not directly unionized, solar investors and companies use union contractors for the installation of their projects. In California more so than anywhere else, fossil power plants will be replaced by renewable energy and SB100 ensures that this change happens with some regulatory certainty.
Grow Your Customers, Utilities Need EVs. To me it is the single most obvious business move since I’ve been running companies. Utilities need more customers to buy EVs, share EVs, and use EVs on demand. This takes market share from the oil companies and grows the need for power, transmission of energy and consumer’s dependence on energy providers. Florida is an amazing example of utilities that are NOWHERE with regard to EVs, even though their demand growth is flatter than our State’s topography.
- PV-Magazine: SEIA to the USITC – ‘What’s next?’ as Suniva/SolarWorld decision looms
- Los Angeles Times: Unions bend California climate change policies in their favor
- NRDC: Utilities Can Boost Electric Vehicles and Cut Carbon
- E&E News: 2 Upper Midwest neighbors appear headed for divorce
- Renewable Energy World: Why There’s Room for Competition in Home Solar Loans
- Greentech Media: Foreign Solar Manufacturers Weigh Opening US Facilities as Tariff Decision Looms
- Bloomberg: U.K. Brushes Off Trump on Iran With $720 Million Solar Deal
- Solar Industry: Berkeley Lab Examines U.S. Utility-Scale Solar Trends
Opinion
Have a great day!
Yann