One Week Away! SolarWakeup Live! Boston is here, coming up next Tuesday the 31st. The goal of this event is to show that solar conferences don’t need to be big or fancy to create value. Much like this newsletter, the point was do it better. I look forward to your feedback and growing the Live! Series from here. I need your help though, I have 10 more tickets to sell and I want to fill the room for the speakers. Could you send this to 2 partners, colleagues or friends in the Boston area? Live! DC is coming up in 5 weeks too!
Role Of Monopoly. My view on the utility in the energy market continues to evolve every time I see a utility get a rate increase or put solar in its ratebase. At its core, utilities provide a wires and poles to energy service providers – generators and retailers. There can’t be any competition in wires because nobody wants two sets of poles on their street. Power plants and energy trading offer a great deal of value to consumers when there is competition. Let’s evaluate.
Reimagine The Utility. Responsibility to serve means more than making sure that the lights turn on when you flip the switch. This also means making sure that utilities are doing it in the best, most efficient way possible. Markets that don’t allow competition should study how it would look if they did allow it and how to make that transition. I’ve said it before, Connecticut and Texas don’t agree on much but they agree on this.
Ideal Role. We’ve seen this already, we see utilities creating largest solar asset portfolios in the market. More importantly, utilities are becoming diversified energy companies investing in and acquiring companies. There is room for growth here, however – look at Stem’s investors as an example. When the dealflow isn’t coming in properly, because energy startups tend to be under capitalized, utility corporate development groups don’t see many deals so they all pounce on the deals that have the attractiveness of having other utilities in them. Making utilities invest through other funds as LPs is one way to solve this or making themselves more visible in the market.
Customer’s Want Change. According to SEPA, there are 171 active community solar programs across the Country – room for more for sure. While 80% of all Americans want more solar, they want it for a variety of reasons. Some want it for cleaner air and cleaner water. Some want to benefit from the natural resources. Some want to make money. That’s why having options is so important.
Presented By True Green Capital. Our current partnership, Fund III, is actively seeking investment opportunities and channel partners to deploy capital in a scalable focused on DG and small utility scale projects. Fund III has ~$350million in equity commitments to build out a ~$1billion solar portfolio.
- Utility Dive: Exelon’s Pepco nets partial rate increase from Maryland regulators
- PV-Magazine: Georgia Power to open community solar program in January
- Vox: Darkness – life in Puerto Rico without electricity
- Axios: China’s pollution is getting in the way of its solar energy goals
- GreenBiz: High aspirations – What’s next for Rocky Mountain Institute
- The Guardian: Americans want a tax on carbon pollution, but how to get one?
- Washington Post: The Energy 202 – Perry’s power grid proposal nabs some union backing
- Reuters: Solar costs to fall further, powering global demand – Irena
Opinion
Have a great day!
Yann