This is your SolarWakeup for August 18th, 2020

The Biden Era And Climate. The current state of energy is as volatile as ever. Oil, gas and coal is in steady state of decline both in production and new generation. Coal generation as a percentage of total is down big. This is going to cause a flywheel effect that leads us to the solution that is apparent to all, renewables, storage and demand response widespread adoption. Here are some thoughts on how the Biden White House would be able to take real action on day 1, borrowing some of the successes from the Trump time. Here we go.

A National Emergency. This is the obvious one, Biden will call climate change a national emergency. This executive action triggers access to powers for the branch including the movement of funds to protect Americans against climate change. Before you blast me for exercising the unilateral executive theory, read below. This power has been litigated to the Supreme Court which allowed Trump to move money from the military for a wall. As a prerequisite this will trigger several administrative options including a reverse MOPR or at least eliminating the DOE led bailouts of coal that the Trump admin attempted but only served to create market chaos.

The Rule Of Law. Kamala Harris was a San Francisco DA when she sued local polluters taking advantage of low income communities. Across the bay, a power plant powered by jet fuel just recently came down and will be replaced with a large battery for example. Once the national emergency is declared, the EPA will use emergency inspections to find generators, drillers, pipeline operators, coal ash ponds that are not complying with environmental laws that protect your water and air, especially for the less fortunate residents. Under Harris’s guidance in collaboration with the DOJ, government lawyers will take action for immediate compliance and temporary closures. (My expectation that most coal ash ponds will be found to not be in compliance for example) This national focus on compliance with clean air act or clean water act will drive the next step.

Let’s Settle For Speed. The first thing with litigation is that everyone including the plaintiff is looking for it to end as quickly as possible. The message will be clear, the government will see this through but wants to focus on compliance and a settlement is on the table. Much like Volkswagen is providing funds for electric vehicles across the Country, polluters will be setting up the 21st century version of superfund compliance funds. This will drive training, cleanup and replacement of generation not in compliance. Some of the best renewable energy policies were found in legislative, regulatory and legal settlements. My hope is we achieve the same thing but a scale that’s never been thought of before.

California As A Bellweather. California blackouts are not caused by solar, any decent reporter would get that answer from CAISO and utility executives (if they were honest). More importantly, the energy crisis would have been exponentially worse if there was no rooftop solar which offset gigawatts of need during peak times and is not accurately tracked by grid operators. So while SMUD wants to use kindergarten math to minimize rooftop solar’s value, what the grid needs is more solar on rooftops with more batteries installed by its side. Check out the CALSSA post on the topic.

Buyer’s Group Update. For the second week in a row the buyer’s group has doubled in size. This is a program for installers by leveraging the aggregate scale in volume which levels the playing field while returning margin to installers across the Country. Through transparent pricing that we are actively negotiating with supply chain, you can not only see the trend line but actually lower your COGS. Join today at solarwakeup.com/pricing

Opinion

Best, Yann