Behind The Scenes. In this newsletter and my interactions with reporters in my professional capacity, I try to give a real account of what I am thinking and how I view the market opportunity. Part of joining FlexGen was being part of a team with Kelcy Pegler and joining a team at FlexGen that has been leading the energy storage market with expertise for over a decade. On the other hand, I was concerned about the timing of energy storage in the overall energy transition. I knew that storage was a crucial element of the transition but joining FlexGen was a decision made before the Texas freeze event which cemented the variables that influenced my decision and confirmed that the decision was a good one. My conversation with Andy Colthorpe from Energy Storage News gives you a view of how we view the market and the opportunities for everyone reading this to start adding storage to their pipeline right now too.
Exxon Loses Another Seat. Exxon vote tallies show that Engine No.1 has another director joining the board. Andy Karsner should be well known to some of you, at one point during the Bush years, Karsner was the highest-ranked Moroccan American in the US government, interesting mostly to me since my family stems from Morocco as well. Karsner most recently spent time at Emerson Collective and comes with a technology view on solving for climate change. As a former wind developer, Karsner was early in building his renewable credentials which will hopefully enable Exxon to see the energy transition as an opportunity not a threat to their business model.
The Big Freeze Inflection. It is becoming clear that winter storm Uri that hit Texas in February of this year is going to be an inflection point for the energy market. The value of winterization, threat of losing frequency on the grid, and realistic event of having to black start generation are all entering analysis in a way that was always viewed as too nuanced before the storm.
PJM Results. The results came in and capacity pricing came in light, some pointing to the lower reserve margins as the leading cause. Coal cleared 8GW less than the last auction and some plants are threatening to shut down due to the low pricing.
- Energy Storage News: ‘FOMO brought me here’ – Why solar exec Yann Brandt leaped to join ESS company FlexGen
- Axios: Climate activists score a third ExxonMobil board seat
- Utility Dive: The Texas Big Freeze – How a changing climate pushed the state’s power grid to the brink
- Reuters: PJM pays prices near lowest in a decade in capacity auction
- Politico: An ‘incredibly critical’ infrastructure week
- Canary Media: Colorado is poised to give a new boost to distributed solar and battery systems
- PV-Tech: Maxwell Technologies breaks own HJ solar cell efficiency record
- Solar Power World: Renewables investor ECP acquires community solar developer Pivot Energy
- PV-Magazine: Canadian energy storage project gains financing commitment
Opinion
Best, Yann