This is your SolarWakeup for December 7th, 2020

It’s A Big Week In DC. It was the corona stimulus and spending bills and now Trump’s attempt to kill section 230 has added the defense spending bill to the to-do list. Most of the work is being done in the Senate and with the NDAA addition, you could expect a continuing resolution instead of an omnibus. A lot will happen every day and the key for me that I’m watching for is any talk about tax extenders, which has been absent thus far (at least publicly).

The STEM SPAC. Stem, a decade removed from an old furniture showroom near SFO, is going public via a reverse merger. Crunchbase shows the company with 20 investors and having raised $371million through their series E. Press releases covering the SPAC announcement has the total value at $1.35billion for the company. In the early days, Stem installed 50kWh batteries at Walgreens as a method to avoid peak demand charges. More recently it appears that the company is more involved in demand aggregation relationships with power markets and utilities though that’s not entirely clear. We will get more public data on the company soon, a real-world check on what virtual power plants are worth.

Biden’s Climate Team. Nominations and staffing rumors are the highlight of a transition. Biden has previously announced former Secretary of State John Kerry as the presidential envoy and permanent member of the NSC for climate. This highlights how Biden will take on the issue in foreign policy and international relations. On the economic front, Biden named Brian Deese as to the National Economic Council putting a climate spin on economic policy. This leaves us with the EPA, Energy and the domestic climate coordinator. Axios has Senator Schumer pushing for Mary Nichols from California for the top of the EPA, we’ve been talking about this for several months and everyone reading this should be rooting for that to happen. Though Biden also picked Xavier Becerra (current CA AG) for HHS and cleaning out Newsom’s staff may be an issue. That leaves us with the domestic climate coordinator role, the floating executive that will ensure agencies are on the same page. Governor’s Granholm and Inslee have both been floated as well as Governor Cuomo’s lead on climate, Ali Zaidi. Granholm brings an interesting background to this, she used to brag about the solar manufacturing center her administration was building in Michigan back in 2007, something that could be used to keep on track with domestic manufacturing.

No Freaking Way. Georgia installed a solar roadway, better believe it. This may push the solar buttons all over again.

Still Essential. As parts of the Country go into lockdown including California, this is a reminder that solar installers are largely considered essential services. Your state chapter may have a memo, like this one from CALSSA, that helps your business stay in operation.

Worthy Of Considerations. Not enough time today but the new Moody’s carbon addition to bond ratings has the possibility of monetizing utilities’ efforts in renewables. Few things have the ability to change a utility CEO’s focus more than the corporate credit rating. The other thing to watch is Google’s efforts to reform RTOs. We’ve been tracking the desire by the tech giant to colocate and time-align their renewable energy purchasing with their own consumption.

Supply Chains Choke Up. If you are a buyer of products, now is the time to expand your time horizons to ensure continuity of supply. Manufacturers and research companies are underestimating the size of the market over the next two quarters and likely most of 2021. That means that there will be a limited amount of product to go around and if you’re not allocated, you may get hung out to dry. SolarWakeup Buyer’s Group is here to help, ensuring allocations for our members now. 

Opinion

Best, Yann