This is your SolarWakeup for August 10th, 2021

IPCC Sounds Climate Alarm. It’s getting hot out there and scientists are saying it’s all coming earlier than previously expected. When my favorite sports podcast starts talking about climate change and rising oceans sinking Miami, you know that climate concerns are getting mainstream. Unfortunately, there is no correlation to the political reality of anyone really giving enough thought to how to actually avoid this outcome. Read the details because I can’t do the scientists justice in how to accurately portray the red alarm.

Budget Bill Timeline. Schumer released the plan for the budget bill and the plan for getting it to the Senate with a goal timeframe of September 15th. This is the target for committees doing their legislative work but largely ignores the House and how they will package the bipartisan infrastructure bill with the budget bill. Will Pelosi sit on the bipartisan bill for 6 weeks or more?

Stranded Not Stranded. Stranded assets is how the market defines coal and gas power plants that are losing their value beyond the current contracts when cost of production exceeds value of generation. I see energy storage being the savior to stranded assets or at least the perceived value of those sites. Land plus interconnection are the two ingredients most crucial to a storage asset, particularly in competitive power markets. Look for those asset owners to make a big run and install storage assets on those sites and unstrand those investments.

Helioscope Acquired. Congrats to Paul and Paul at Folsom Labs. From the empty office in the Genability office to the pioneers of digital layouts, you made your mark on the solar industry for a long time. Getting acquired by Aurora makes sense and I look forward to seeing how you build the next generation with even more resources.

Opinion

Best, Yann