This is your SolarWakeup for April 30th, 2019

New York Incentive For Storage. NYSERDA is making things going forward and with these incentive levels, expect a lithium rush to the Empire State. ‘Retail’ projects will start with incentives of $350/kWh and larger projects will start at $110/kWh. Both create a major catalyst for the market to expand and with the pool of available capital, it should be able to last for sometime. I actually worry that the incentive is too high as battery costs are declining rapidly. In the meantime, let’s see with integrators are best positioned to serve the developer markets. My interview with Engie Storage CCO is coming soon to the podcast and catch my interview from last year with FlexGen CEO, Josh Prueher on the topic. 

But We Need More. With reporting from down under, it shows that energy storage is a vital part of where we need to go. That is why you’ve seen CalSEIA and COSeia change their names to include storage, CALSSA and COSSA respectively now. The next decade will decide what the technologies of storage with be, including pumped hydro when possible. With California and New York going big on incentives to drive the markets, expect the storage sector to develop robust pipelines and drive the price down alongside the auto OEMs. 

Beto Takes On Climate. The former Congressman from Texas that took the nation by storm last year during his race against Ted Cruz has outlined the first policy for his Presidential campaign. The policy is a $5 trillion climate plan that gets us to reach ‘net-zero’ by 2050. In some ways this is the ‘I have my own plan so I don’t need the green new deal, plan.’ Beto has been quiet but with 20 candidates in the primary, it’s going to take some work to stick out. In other climate news, Congressman Seth Moulton is calling for a moonshot to develop nuclear fusion technology to solve climate change. 

Opinion

Have a great day!

Yann