This is your SolarWakeup for July 26th, 2021

The Full Package Value. Lawrence Berkeley National Lab confirms what we already knew and what makes sense. When solar and batteries are attached to a consumer’s demand, i.e. their home, it provides value to them and the grid. That means that your neighbor with solar and batteries is lowering your non-solar home electric bill. I’d insert a physics metaphor here but unfortunately that is not how utility policy works. Utility commissions hire for profit firms to do rate studies instead of government labs that don’t have a bias to solve for a predetermined outcome.

What To Watch For. As we mentioned here last week, Senator Portman is taking the lead on the infrastructure drama. Today, you can expect republicans in the senate to open up the bipartisan bill and let it pass. Pelosi has said she would not put the bipartisan bill on the floor in the House unless the reconciliation bill is also passed by the Senate, basically saying both or nothing. Republicans will see whether they delay the bipartisan bill to get it closer to the August recess or pass it and make their case to the American people that Pelosi is hurting the economy. I think Pelosi may have learned that public opinion on policy doesn’t matter in DC, so I’d bet on the former strategy of delay, delay, delay.

Bankability Means Leverage. If you want to do solar deals in Iraq, creating leverage by also being a major oil partner is probably the only way to create bankability. Not a major market point for us in the US, but the leverage negotiation tactic is a good takeaway for all of you.

Reliability Pricing. Is an uncapped frequency response market the way to price signal reliability? Let’s see how ERCOT views its future.

Big Dollars For Rivian. Trucks are supposed to be delivering to early orders this year but since Q1, communications from Rivian to customers has been slow. Another $2.5billion should help grease the proverbial skids.

A New Metal Battery. Since Mateo Jaramillo left Tesla to start Form Energy, it’s been a mystery what chemistry the company would use to solve their multi-day energy storage challenge. The company released the secret on Friday and Iron-Air is the answer.

Financing EV Charging. Learn how to effectively model, finance and sell solar EV charging projects using SCF’s free software, the SCF Suite. On July 28th, at 10am PST, Sustainable Capital Finance (SCF) will host the next webinar in its 2021 webinar series, providing an in-depth breakdown of SCF’s new EV charging finance solution, how to use the SCF Suite to price projects and sell more EVC finance projects to C&I and non-profit customers. This webinar is recommended for solar developers and installers interested in increasing their range of offerings to include electric vehicle charging solutions, as well as combined solar+storage+EVC offerings. Click here to register for this exciting, free webinar.

Opinion

Best, Yann