Solar Is Big Money. In 2018, the global solar market is going to top 100GW. That means more than $100 billion in total capital was committed to the market for 20 years of solar cashflows. In the US we likely stayed north of $20billion last year which is impressive on its own but we are getting to the point that global investors see the safety of the solar investment. There is still plenty of risk allocated to the market and room to lower the cost of capital. The margins remain on the pipeline side of the ledger, if someone can put land, interconnection and revenue together, they have created the value that will get them paid.
The Big Lyft. Lyft is targeting 1billion self driving electric vehicle rides by 2025, annually. Maybe that explains why Google’s energy director, Sam Arons, recently joined Lyft as the Director of Sustainability. Sam was often on the solar circuit talking about Google’s energy strategy and how the company would get to 100% renewable energy. I can only surmise that Lyft is thinking that the billion electric rides need to be powered with renewable energy. A corporate deal for a fleet of EVs?
Time For Retail Choice. Rocky Mountain Institute is out with a consumerism report using Green Mountain Power as the case study. The broader story here is the intermediate step before monopoly markets are deregulated and that is retail choice. This would be the allowance of third parties to serve as retail providers to consumers that wanted to enter into short term contracts for energy for the product and price they are willing to pay. Like picking a cable provider but for energy. Some legislation has been floating for this and gets pushed back quite a bit but it would be a great step forward if there is more traction on this issue.
Tuesday’s Mailbag. Thank you to the tremendous feedback about my comments from yesterday, which Frank covered in more detail. This reminds me of the arguments I was having with SEIA back in 2014 when SEIA wasn’t sure that it would support an ITC extension (yes, that happened) because some members weren’t supportive. It took the Solar Pledge and some marketing to get SEIA on board with the ITC extension and in this case it will take your voices to stop utilities from being members at SEIA, even as non-voting members. As I’ve urged those that have emailed me, make sure you let SEIA know how you feel.
Forest Through The Trees. This appears to be a bit of a scrivener’s error or at worst a silly way to stop distributed generation in California. EDF does a good job in shining the light on this.
- Greentech Media: Global Solar PV Installations to Surpass 104 GW in 2018
- Bloomberg: Lyft’s Strategist Wants Self-Driving Electric Cars to Save the World
- Rocky Mountain Institute: Customer-Centric Energy Transformation
- SolarWakeup: Here’s What Happens When Utilities Rule The Roost
- EDF: California bill aimed at wildfires effectively bans clean energy that may help prevent them
- Brookings Institute: The dark side of solar
- Charlotte Observer: NC regulators just made it cheaper to install solar panels on your roof. Here’s how.
- SolarWakeup: Cigarette Companies To Exxon Execs – Damn, Sucks To Be You!
Opinion
Have a great day!
Yann