201 Plaintiffs Strike Again. On June 21st, executives from First Solar, Suniva and Q-Cells met with the Deputy Trade Representative to fight back against the 201 tariff exclusion for bi-facial modules. The fact that Suniva is still actively undermining the solar industry is incredibly frustrating. First Solar has a great product with Series 6 and should let its product do its talking instead of trying for a regulatory band aid. The claim is that wall street’s bullish outlook on the exclusion shows that this is an undue advantage for bi-facial manufacturers, a technology that none of the three plaintiffs are showing on their product websites. If you have more information on this, go ahead and send it to me confidentially by hitting reply.
Impact If Successful. This impacts utility-scale solar since that is where the bi-facial market is largely focused. Companies like NEXTracker have been hyping the benefits of bi-facial on trackers for over a year and the exclusion gave some lift to the more expensive technology. The meeting was held to ask for the exclusion to be rescinded or place a 500MW quote on the exclusion. If either of those is granted, it will likely depress the market once more creating greater urgency on extending the ITC. What is clear is that the plaintiffs have no regard to the crisis caused by climate change, this is pure financial motive.
Bill Gates’s Nuclear Concerns. Bill Gates is concerned that an advanced nuclear technology that he is invested in will not find a home for its demonstration project. Originally slated for China, Gates hopes that this technology will be given a chance in the US. Gates is outspoken about the need for advanced nuclear research and development to create a carbon-free future and in this case, is putting his money where his mouth is.
Sunnova’s Raise. The initial offering hopes to sell north of 17million shares between $16 and $18 with the upper range providing $365million in the raise. I think this is a good time to go out with installers giving a very positive outlook to the residential market and Sunrun (similar but different) doing well in the public markets.
- Utility Dive: LevelTen – Wind, solar developers expect PPA prices to stay low in 2020 after tax credit roll-offs
- Axios: Bill Gates faces “daunting” nuclear energy future
- Biz Journals: Houston-based rooftop solar co. launches IPO to raise up to $365M
- PV-Tech: National Grid completes acquisition of Geronimo Energy
- Journal Sentinel: We Energies drops proposal for surcharge on homeowners, small businesses that go solar
- Greentech Media: Tendril Merges With Simple Energy to Form Uplight
- Columbus Dispatch: New version of nuclear bailout bill would bolster solar projects in state
Opinion
Have a great day!
Yann