This is your SolarWakeup for December 2nd, 2020

Two Bills Become One. Senator McConnell is laying the path for the covid stimulus to be rolled into the omnibus spending bill which is needed to fund the government beyond December 11th. Romney had earlier stated that there’s a covid path at a $900billion mark including the reuse of the unused treasury slush fund. McConnell is signaling the pathway towards something I find rather positive, the spending bill will get bigger and more important. In DC, the bigger the price tag the better especially if it does things voters require of legislators like save the economy from a recession, send them money and fund the military. The most important part is that voters do not distinguish between $3 or $4trillion dollars, it’s a lot of money any way you look at it. What nobody has said yet is talk of tax extenders or continuing resolution. It seems to me that McConnell isn’t interested in pushing this to the new Congress (Georgia runoffs pending and new members with agendas) and a Biden White House. Watch this space for the next week, some action alerts may be coming your way.

A New FERC. Allison Clements and Mark Christie have been confirmed as new FERC commissioners. Ms. Clements is well regarded from inside the clean tech sector and is touted on Twitter having been active on the wonky #energytwitter prior to her nomination. Mr. Christie is also seen as a solid interpreter of the rules and regulations governing the energy markets and this is coming from a former regulator. This may setup a decent starting point for the Biden administration especially, as one would assume, a review of the MOPR is brought back to the docket amongst other things.

Climate Investing Tool. BlackRock is showing some professional chops today. On Monday, Brian Deese was announced as a Biden appointee who comes from BlackRock as the Global Head of Sustainable Investments and is under some, albeit tempered, fire from the progressives. Yesterday, BlackRock is enhancing its ESG credibility with a investment tool that will analyze companies based on internal and external sources on how able to withstand climate change. Aladdin Climate will rank companies on how well they do against climate goals set forth. The head of the tool is Mary-Catherine Lader, her (former) boss is Brian Deese.

Dealflow For Investors. Third Derivative is a venture/incubator spun out by RMI and New Energy Nexus which launched with almost 50 invested companies this week. Their LPs are many of the corporates that like the space but don’t get the deal flow and ability to invest at the lower dollar amounts that many of these companies need at the early stages. A $5million check for an oil major doesn’t pay the legal fees so a platform like Third Derivative makes sense.

Polluters Must Fund. Abandoned and capped wells across the Country are polluting the environment around them and that’s a problem. While some see an opportunity to clean it up, the Department of Justice, EPA and Interior need to be finding those that have commitments to those wells and landowners and ensure that they pay for the entirety of an investment gone back.

Solar For Clubs. My friends at Sustainable Capital Finance (SCF) have seen an uptick in interest for solar PPAs from schools, country clubs, and golf courses, as these off-takers have been impacted differently than other C&I energy consumers during the COVID-19 crisis. Golf & Country Clubs have seen increased revenue from golf and other outdoor activities, while schools would install solar while students aren’t on school grounds. In both scenarios, savings from a solar PPA are extremely attractive.Click here to learn more about how their subscription-free, proprietary software, the SCF suite, can help to speed up your PPA pricing and transaction process.

Opinion

Best, Yann