This is your SolarWakeup for October 22nd, 2018

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Insider Access, PSC Importance. Arizona is going through a big fight around the 50% RPS ballot initiative. Surprising to me, but not to dinosaur thinking, APS (the Arizona utility) is strongly opposed to the proposition. What it has been doing, now documented by internal emails, is using the regulatory body (ACC) to push out their talking points. One former regulator called is “regulatory capture” but I call it the status quo. In States where the utility regulator is elected, the only party that cares to invest in those campaign is the utility the body has to regulate. If you want to be a regulator in Arizona, the easiest way to the office was to align yourself and make yourself available to the government affairs teams. This is dangerous and bad for consumers. As an aside, I do find APS’s position on the RPS to be corporate negligence. A rebuild of the grid and change of generation in 10 years offers in incredible opportunity to rate base investments and charges to all consumers while greening the grid. 

Learning Lesson. Here is the counterpoint to the ‘regulatory capture’ above. You lose 100% of the battles you stay out of and regulators will care 0% of all the arguments you never make to them. Moreover, regulators will never know your issue if you don’t spend telling them the talking points. They will surely ignore you and often won’t respond, but you need to keep them reading your message. Much of this is based on my personal experience writing this newsletter. I may not always respond to your emails but I almost always read them or see the headline. Some PR agencies send me press releases with little result but some PR experts know the audience, tell me the message and attach the link to the article. But most of all, you’d be surprised at how many companies, startups and advocates never reach out at all. 

Electric Transportation. I am fascinated by the traction that electric vehicles are getting, more specifically those vehicles in fleets. UPS and FedEx always jump to the top of the last mile list. Walmart and JB Hunt are the long distance challenge. Mass transit and school buses are the local routes. There will be hundreds of billions in transaction value and integration challenges but nonetheless this is really exciting to think about. 

How Solar Bills Become Law. Part 2 of my discussion with Brad Klein of ELPC centers around how the Illinois solar policy came to life. Through the needs of the utility which wanted to get subsidies for ailing nuclear plants arised the opportunity for the solar and environmental advocacy groups to coalesce and make an ask. Get the details by listening to the unedited interview here and join us for more of this type of conversation in a few weeks in New Jersey. 

Opinion

 

Have a great day!

Yann