This is your SolarWakeup for March 29th, 2020

Almost Infrastructure Week. On the Sunday shows, the White House revealed that the $3trillion infrastructure bill will separate actual infrastructure from social infrastructure. This means that the more popular roads, bridges, and energy-related topics will likely be packaged in hopes to get bipartisan support. From a behind-the-scenes standpoint, you can feel Manchin’s fingerprints on the split possibly with support for a reconciliation vote in the later package. Much is being made of the 10-year extension for the ITC, possibly back to 30%, the inclusion of stand-alone storage, and a shorter-term direct pay.

The Amazon Of Solar. With Sunpower’s CEO, Tom Werner, retiring after some 18 years at the helm of the company, the board brings in a new face to solar. Peter Faricy is viewed as a direct-to-consumer pro, sits on the board of Blue Apron, and spent over 12 years at Amazon, from 06 to 2018. Sunpower has spent quite a bit of money trying to reach homeowners and get them to view the company as a brand without much success, relying on their dealer network to do the more grassroots approach. With the company pivot in full swing, I’d expect the company to give that another shot. Here’s the interesting thing about the CEO hire, it doesn’t matter that there is no solar experience, the hire shows a pivot to mainstream consumer marketing instead. So I ask you this, is solar mainstream enough that it’s become a marketing-first industry?

Renewables Means Profits. Public companies are leaning in and sometimes relying on renewables to create shareholder value. Look at the tailwinds in the industry, from the first two paragraphs, as well as the ability to start creating a 10-year company plan due to regulatory certainty that the ITC extension will provide. It will show the maturity of an industry that things in real-world time horizons instead of peaks and valleys that we’ve become used to. It also means that the multiples that public companies like Enphase, Array Technologies, Shoals, Solaredge and Generac have are justified given the long-term growth ahead for the markets; in all segments and markets around renewables and grid resilience.

A Global Climate Summit. Biden and Xi are publicly thinking about having a climate summit. Alignment on this issue to sort through the other diplomatic rifts would be good for our industry.

Free Series for Solar EPCs. I’ve teamed up with EagleView to host their Solar Business PowerSeries. Each month, we’re talking with experts on topics like LEAN and TQM, streamlining the solar permit process, deploying technology in solar, and more. This month, I’m talking with Jake Wachman from SunPower Corporation about how his company uses technology and automation to drive growth. If you’re a small- or mid-sized EPC who’s looking to improve your operations in 2021, sign up to join us live on April 8th. Registered users also gain access to the first two episodes on-demand.

Opinion

Best, Yann