This is your SolarWakeup for April 15th, 2021

All At Once, With Tailwinds. Everything appears to be headed into the same direction in the energy transition especially as it pertains to energy storage additions. This isn’t me talking my own book, this is in the headlines within the same media publications that have always shaped this newsletter. Bloomberg called for a quarter trillion dollar shift towards batteries earlier this week but are drastically underestimating the cost declines that are coming. We are already seeing a level of market maturity as solar executives are becoming one with the solar+ concept. Underpinning the global market is the shift from internal combustion to electric vehicles. Given the manufacturing overlap and both markets growing together, exponentially, the grid platform will benefit from a crazy increase in that manufacturing.

ERCOT Troubles Continue. On Tuesday morning there was a graph that made the online rounds where demand in ERCOT was forecast to be higher than the available power capacity. This was due to a large amount of thermal generation being down from maintenance, likely still catching up from the winter storm in February. At the 7-8pm hours, energy pricing rose to nearly $2,000/MWh for a short duration and the system operator called for consumers to shed demand as much as possible. The situation mellowed quickly and no emergency had to be declared but it came close.

The Climate Diplomat. John Kerry, as a special presidential envoy, is working with China this week to move along the climate conversations. As Kerry put it, they are talking about talking, working to have the US and China at the table working on climate issues. 

 Opinion

Best, Yann