Solar Permits Discussed. Tomorrow morning, join me on a conference call with Chris Collins from Ohm Analytics and Phil Shen from Roth Capital to talk about the trend of solar permitting from across the country. You can register (free) here.
Monopolies Bank Political Power. Even when consumers have the ability to choose a retail electricity provider, they typically don’t. According to the EIA, less than 20% of consumers with choice actually participate. This makes the absurdity of monopoly protection by politicians even less palatable. There is no political reality where Governors of North Carolina, Florida and South Carolina agree that one corporation has massive control over their infrastructure and Georgia would clearly expect them to be next. The only way that this actually happens is if Nextera is willing to expand consumer choice with retail energy choice. Doing the math, they are likely to only lose a small percentage of their customer base and still control a huge amount of infrastructure.
A Failure Of Resiliency. In engineering school you learn a lot about the weakest link, even more so when you go through fire academy. The key is to plan for the weakest link to fail and make sure it doesn’t have an outsized impact on the rest of the system. What I’m referring to is the sudden shutdown of Diablo Canyon nuclear plant unit 2 last week, right as CAISO was headed into another weekend of potential issues and new fire starts. That’s the problem with nuclear, it’s too big to fail but more often than not, it isn’t there when you need it and you can’t make that up with adequate reserve margin leaving only demand response, and yes, blackouts are a form of demand response. That’s why part of the equation has to be the aggregation of large scale with long duration storage, as we see in the RFP today, with the cumulative scale of millions of rooftop solar. As grid operators we have to start thinking about the C&I roofs as well, they represent the most underutilized real estate that already has interconnection and demand on site.
The EV Platform. My favorite company in the clean tech space has long been Proterra. It’s scrappy and big in potential. Now it’s getting its balance sheet ready for more with Blackstone coming back fresh off the Vivint Solar sale. Look for this company to do much more.
Sentiment Is Everything. Sentiment can create trends and traction in public markets but that trickles down every other part of the investment world. This is positive and watch for these numbers to get even better.
Covering The ITC. In the last 15 years, the Investment Tax Credit (ITC) has allowed organizations to benefit from substantial cost savings to solar installations. This sustainability-driven program has helped revolutionize the renewable energy industry. Regardless, in 2021 ITC benefits will shift; here is what you need to know from my friends at M Bar C Construction and how we can help you and your organization take maximum advantage of these savings while they last.
- Utility Dive: NextEra merger may be too attractive for Duke, regulators to ignore, analysts say
- KEYT: PG&E removes Diablo Canyon’s Unit 2 for unexpected maintenance
- PV-Magazine: Blackstone enters the electric bus and van race, plus the return of seed-stage solar investing
- Axios: What investors think about the future of fossil fuels
- Vox: What’s causing climate change, in 10 charts
- Reuters: Portland General Electric shuts Oregon’s only coal-fired power plant
- Greentech Media: The First Major Long Duration Storage Procurement Has Arrived
Opinion
Best, Yann