This is your SolarWakeup for October 5th, 2020

Vote Save Solar. On Friday’s episode of Pod Save America podcast, former Obama official Dan Pfeiffer commented that the first person to knock on his Bay Area door since the pandemic started was a solar salesperson. Sometimes I get my market data in the strangest places and for those wondering, he was not interested to talk to anyone at his door. Anyone know whose salesperson is door knocking in San Francisco?

To Clean Or Not To Clean. NextEra is celebrating the news of their new market cap surpassing Exxon’s by spinning themselves as a clean energy company. NextEra is first and foremost a monopoly that is primarily gas. Being a monopoly has enabled the company to invest in many gigawatts of wind and solar across the Country which gives them the ability to make the clean energy headline. Fundamentally, NextEra would build anything that makes them money regardless of its cleanliness. For years, their CEO was loud and proud that solar wouldn’t work, even spinning Florida too cloudy for PV. I think the Florida consumers that subsidize NextEra should be beneficiary of the company’s success, but obviously I am just dreaming.

What’s The Legislative Forecast? For the next 30 days, we will cover the what ifs of various election results, maybe even look at certain states that have flippable legislatures. Looking at polling, the options ahead for DC tend to expect a Biden White House, Blue House and toss up in the Senate. The Senate toss up has layers given how the institution operates and the unknown about the filibuster. Tomorrow, we’ll look at the blue wave scenario with removal of the filibuster and how energy policy would look in that scenario.

Solar On Schools. Every school in America should be covered in solar and now should have a microgrid as well. Schools are at the center of every community and in many cases the source of safety for natural disasters or emergency events. This is just common sense at this point. 

A Recap Pod. How many of your are podcast listeners and would like to have a weekly solar market recap podcast from this platform? We’re looking into format options and whether people are interested. Shoot us a note, hit reply and let us know. If any companies like the idea and would like to sponsor that, give us a ring.

Get The Power. Later this year, the residential solar market is going to get some major savings with most of their balance of systems when the shift to higher power solar modules really gets going. With power density going up more than 10%, those savings will trickle down to mounts, rails, inverters, labor and wire and hopefully into installers’ wallets. Make sure you are getting the best modules and pricing possible by joining the SolarWakeup Buyer’s Group. You can see the pricing on our price discovery page. 

Opinion

Best, Yann