This is your SolarWakeup for December 21st, 2017

Tax Reform. No substantive changes from the conference bill to the one signed into law yesterday. I’ve done some back of the envelope modeling and it looks like the values are in line with where they were, depending of tax investors’ circumstances of course. On the other hand, I do worry about the lack of liability in the overall market and how that will impact the pricing. There could be an interesting uptick in the C&I cash market for companies looking at the immediate depreciation, especially paired with things like PACE to defray the non-tax cash needs.

Get Me Pipeline. Greenskies has been acquired by Clean Focus in what looks like a path to more pipeline for the IPP. The competition for utility scale is strong and it makes sense for some to look for scale in the C&I markets. None of the deal terms were released but I would be surprised if this is more than an acquihire and acquisition of assets that may be on the balance sheet. Glad to see the transaction happen though.

Future Of Gas Power. The gas as a bridge fuel is going to have different shelf lives across States, each having their own sets of variables to drive the adoption beyond gas towards renewables. In California, the high energy prices and a group of regulators that looks beyond the short term has viewed the construction of gas plants (not just gas peakers) as unneeded, or at least it looks like they are implying this. The long term view on this is exacerbated by the next point below and when other power plants shut down.

More Mobility. I was a bit shocked by this number, BMW sold over 100k plug in vehicles in 2017. The i3 has always been underwhelming considering the skinny tires and strange design but I guess consumers are taking an interest to it. What happens to all of this when battery prices cut in half? What happens when more people drive an electric car (you should try if you haven’t) and realize it’s a better driving experience. The grid is going to finally see growth in demand and that demand will likely be matched by renewable generation dispatched through the batteries.

SolarWakeup Live New York. I am biased but I am excited about this event already. There will be a mix of public sector and private sector speakers on topics like REV, community solar development, big capital and blockchain innovation. The details are getting setup now and will be published here when they are finalized.

Opinion

Have a great day!

Yann